NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship - All Sessions Pass (May 24th - May 26th)
NCAA Lacrosse Championships - Women's Division I and Men's Division II and III Finals
First Held: 1971
1971 Champion: Cornell
2019 Champion: Virginia
2020 Location: Philadelphia
The NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship features the final four teams standing after 70 NCAA Division I teams start their seasons several months earlier. The crowds will be considerable, and the action will be intense. This is understandable as each of the teams start the weekend with two wins from a national championship. The timing of this event is convenient for many: the national championship game has traditionally been played on Memorial Day. This has been confirmed to continue to be the case through at least 2022. This event also receives considerable television coverage as every game of the 2019 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament was broadcast on national television; the three NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship matches all aired on ESPN2. However, nothing compares to being there, and there are still spots in the stadium if you’d like to experience this event live. Grab your NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship tickets at StubHub.
The first NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship was an eight-team affair, and
Cornell
was ultimately the last one standing. The Big Red defeated Brown, Army and Maryland. The first match was played at home in Ithaca, New York, the second in West Point, New York, and the third at a neutral site in Hempstead, New York.
Virginia
prevailed over a 17-team field at the 2019 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament. The Virginia Cavaliers initially defeated Robert Morris and Maryland. The first contest was played at home in Charlottesville and snapped the team’s four-game losing streak in NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament matches. The second game took place in Hempstead, New York. The team kept that momentum going, outlasting Duke in its first 2019 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship match, and pulling past Yale, 13-9, in the national championship game. Both of those contests were played in Philadelphia. The title was Virginia’s sixth and first since 2011.
The 2020 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship will be the second consecutive to be hosted by Philadelphia’s
Lincoln Financial Field
. It is scheduled for May 23-25 at the home of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles. Prior to those matches, the 2020 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships quarterfinals will be played in Hempstead, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. Meanwhile, the 2021 and 2022 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships will be played at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Connecticut.
Syracuse
has experienced the most success at the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship, claiming 10 trophies. Its first was won in 1983 while the Orange were last champions in 2009. Next on that list is Johns Hopkins with nine. The Johns Hopkins Blue Jays lifted this trophy for the first time in 1974 and most recently did so in 2007. Virginia’s 2019 title moved it into a tie for third place on this list with Princeton; Princeton has won this competition on six occasions.
The Men’s Lacrosse Championship is one of the most highly attended ones that the NCAA operates. An impressive crowd of 31,528 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship ticket holders attended the championship game in 2019 while the crowd for this contest has been at least 24,000 since 2003. In 2008, the largest crowd to ever attend a national championship game – 48,970 – saw Syracuse defeat Johns Hopkins, 13-10, in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The biggest crowd for a Philadelphia-hosted championship game is not far behind that; 47,062 were entertained by Virginia’s 15-7 win over Massachusetts in the 2006 title game.