Jim Scherr and Bob DeMarco join Terry Foy on Inside Lacrosse Podcasts

TF: Again, just to start broadly, when you think back when you reflect on your tenure in the last seven years and you think of all the steps that have been taken, what stands out?

JS: I think obviously the two biggest things that stand out are, one is the incredible growth that we’ve had.

We’ve gone from 58 member countries to now 92 soon to be 93. There’s one in the hopper that will be approved quickly. And I think very early in 2025 we will be over a hundred member countries and so that shows that we’re on the right track and growing the game around the world.

I think it also shows the incredible power in the game of lacrosse in attracting new participants and passionate adherence to the game. And so that’s great to be involved with such a dynamic sport.

And then the second is the process of Olympic inclusion, which included a number of activities and actions that we undertook. One was building relationships with the Olympic family, progressing on the path to International Federation recognition with the IOC, developing a sport, developing a new discipline in the sport, building the capabilities of international Federation so there was confidence that World Lacrosse could pull off an Olympic Games competition and qualifying tournament.

And we were able to accomplish both of those two major goals over the past almost eight years now.

So very rewarding to be involved with the sport, a dynamic sport, and a very passionate group of volunteers like Bob, who have dedicated their lives to seeing the sport grow around the world.

TF: Bob how do you describe your experience with your organization pre and post Jim’s arrival? What changes did he bring?

BD: Well, I go so far back, even pre-FIL days. I remember 50 years ago when the men’s organization just started with four countries and the women had six at that time.

And we did not really get into growth until the late eighties when the Haudenosaunee came in as our fifth men’s country and then Japan quickly followed and followed by six European countries.

And we went along with that with volunteers as small staff, part time staff. But we realized, to get to our dream, we needed Jim as CEO, we needed full time staff.

And fortunately in 2017, when Jim came aboard, a lot of groundwork was done. But we needed to get over the goal line. And I think Jim and his staff provided that.

TF: So to dive in a little bit on some of the things that have transpired over the that course of time, you touched on this, but one that I want to go a little bit deeper on is the international development.

And what it entailed from a member nation standpoint. So how do you explain the massive and meteoric explosive growth?

BD: Yeah, there were, there were 52, I believe in 2017, it was 35 in 2010. I think once, once we were able to get full time staff, specifically T.J. Buchanan with our organization, then all of a sudden, the correspondence with countries became clear.

Normally what happened was we would find we get a lead on some country, find out what’s going on, hoping that the big lead was that we’d have people on a ground pushing it, we didn’t want to have outside people running the organization. So that was a key.

But I think having the full-time staff from 2017 really helped in the big explosion.

TF: And Jim, what’s been like from your perspective to shepherd those countries is they’ve gone through the process of, of becoming members of world across.

JS: Well, the development committee working with TJ, our Director of Sport have a great process.  They spend a lot of time recruiting countries, developing play at the local grassroots level in countries that are World Lacrosse members, sort of seeding the game.

And then there’s a very formal process in terms of what needs to happen in the country in terms of infrastructure and grassroots support for the game, the numbers of players that goes through process with the development committee. And then they’re approved by the World Lacrosse board and ultimately the membership as member nations and I can tell you from my experience in the Olympic movement over the past eight to say 40 years that the IOC considers our process absolutely complete and done the right way, without naming any names, but there are international iterations that if there’s a guy in his kitchen table that will sign a piece of paper, they now have a national governing body.

And that’s not the way we do it. We’ve had incredible growth, but it’s the growth in the right way. And hopefully these programs are sustainable for the long term and continue to grow the games in their country and then contribute to the growth of the game.

BD: I totally agree. This was an example of a development committee before staff that did a great job. I mean, we were involved in it, but it was an example of how volunteers could work with staff.

And we continue the development, we continue to meet monthly on these types of things.  Rick Mercutio heads our development committee and does a tremendous job, as other individual people. They have the passion to see sticks in kids’ hands and grassroots has always been the main reason why we developed countries, the main reason.

TF: So to shift the focus from grassroots development to events, because ultimately the ability to compete, the opportunity to compete is a huge part of why an international governing body exists and why these athletes all around the world aspire to play this game.

Jim, how has the event structure and the way in which the individual events have been operated? How has that evolved over the course of the last seven or eight years?

JS: That’s a really good question. And I would boil the international federation responsibilities down to maybe three, maybe more but three major ones.

One is to grow interest and participation in popularity of the game globally.

The second is to determine the rules and eligibility for the game and steward the game itself.

And three is to conduct competitions that identify the best teams and athletes in the world.

And we’ve tried to build the footprint of our events, make them more popular, make them more fan friendly, make them a better experience for the athletes, have a more robust bidding process and engage more bidders for the events.

And that’s starting to bear fruit. We’ve had 13 bidders for our current open 2027 Sixes World Championship, which is by far way more bidders than we’ve had expressed interest in any single event.

So I think we’re trying to limit the size of the competition going forward now so that the best of the best will be there.

Two, we’re trying to run them in that way that meets and needs of the athletes and their competitive experience and offers a more robust fan friendly experience.

Three, we want to market these events more. And four, we want to get to get the word out about these events so that more people can consume them, whether it’s on social/digital media, whether it’s on our broadcast, and our recent broadcast partnerships with the ESPN, or whether it’s on World Lacrosse TV, our new streaming service.

But it doesn’t do our athletes any good to have an event that’s a tree falling in the forest. And that fruit is really starting to show.

The amount of video views and the number of impressions out of our world events has gone through the roof in the last year. In fact, we’re rivaling a number of Olympic international federations if not besting many of them in terms of the amount of content we’re posting, the amount of interest, or 47 million impressions at our most recent box world championships in Utica, which is an amazing number.

TF: I want to talk specifically about the box world championships as well as the women’s U20. And I think that they each represent two potential trends or kind of important considerations.

I want to follow up on the point that you made about limiting the size. The men’s world championship in ’23, I believe, was the first time that all interested in attending teams were not allowed or were not invited to attend.

And it speaks to what is kind of a central process for the pinnacle opportunity here, which is participating in the 2028 Olympics. And that is a qualification process and particularly regional qualification, which then also requires or would suggest the need for regional governing bodies. I’ll put it to either of you, but can you speak to the status of developing regional governing bodies and regional events that can then lead to a qualification process, not just for the Olympics, but for every World Lacrosse the event.

JS:  I’ll start and then I’ll flip it over to Bob. And this is one of Bob’s projects when I came on board in 2017 at the 2018 LaxCon, Bob and a number of others pulled together interested parties from the four continents that are primarily represented in lacrosse and set about developing four different continental federations.

And ELF, Asia-Pacific Lacrosse Union, were operating, but there was no Pan-American Lacrosse Association and no Africa Association of Lacrosse and now we have four continental federations.

World Lacrosse now supplies grant money to each of those federations or is available each of those federations to help develop the sport in their continent and to help administer the sport in their continent.

I think it was four years ago that we began executing agreements with each of the continental federations to host qualifying events that would qualify teams into the World Lacrosse championships.

Part of the strategy ongoing is lowering the number of teams in our world championships and making them actual world championship competitions versus developmental competitions, just to make that qualification system stronger and more meaningful for the teams. And those are better events, higher profiles and the teams get that experience of competing at the world class level for the athletes at the continental qualifiers.

Ultimately, all of our events will have qualifiers at the continental level and then we will hope to hopefully be in additional multi-sport events like the Pan-American Games and Asian Games that will provide more regional competitions. Because now with 90-some member countries we need more additional international competition and that system will provide it.

BD: Yeah, I’m in total agreement there and we have talked a great deal in the last year about these regional competitions and the importance of it.

I know some of our countries depend on their funding from their local Olympic organizing committee on where they are in the Olympic competition, and I think we need high profile continental federation tournaments.

Even though there will be qualifiers for us for a world championship, we need to make a big thing about the continental federation championship, European champion or Pan-Am champion.

And then going right along with Jim, we’ve said for years we were looking to try to get into the Pan Am Games. It’s always been a goal of ours.

And interesting, we really heard crickets for a long time until we got in the Olympics and all of a sudden now, we’re getting calls and then dialogue is now beginning in the Pan-Am Games. And I think that the Asian Games, European Games, the Commonwealth Games, all of these, I look for that in a future as being right there with the Olympics.

TF: So with respect to the women’s U20 championship, it was hosted in Hong Kong, and it is one of, as far as I know, three events that will be hosted in East Asia over the course of the next three years. And to me, that’s a very important factor in not just promoting the growth but also reflecting the growth. And Jim, when you and I spoke in San Diego, I expressed my hope that Japan both on the basis of how the men’s team performed in the 2023 World Championship, but then also the incredible scenes that we’ve seen on social media of the games that have occurred there, particularly around their university system, it just feels like such a compelling opportunity. Then in addition to that, the men’s U20 taking place in Korea next summer, what was the reaction to the women’s U20 event in Hong Kong from World Lacrosse perspectives?

JS: It was a fantastic event. It was a struggle with some of the weather and getting all the games in, but the local organizing committee was incredibly flexible, and we were hopping fields all over Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Lacrosse Association did a great job hosting that event.

We had the largest U20 women’s world championship ever, with 20 teams with 64 games across the 10 days. But also, at the point in time that tournament happened, it was a highest consumption of digital and social media in history at any World Lacrosse event.

And further evidencing the development in Japan, the Japanese women’s U20 team won the bronze medal, which was the first world championship medal of any kind for Japan in a World Lacrosse event.

And they also, as we all know, took the third or bronze medal in the World Games, which is a multi-sport event that’s not a World Lacrosse event, but a World Lacrosse competition under that framework.

So Japan continued to progress in San Diego, in Utica, on the men’s side, finishing in the top 10 in their first tournament, and then in Hong Kong. But the reception in Hong Kong was amazing. We want to do more events in Hong Kong in the future, it’s a great market for international sport.

Obviously, our strategy of in 2025 having the men’s U20 in South Korea, and then in ‘26 and ‘27 having women’s field and men’s field in Japan, again with the Olympics in Brisbane in 2032, both reflect the great growth of lacrosse in that region of the world, but also an opportunity for us to embrace that growth and create more growth and develop further the popularity of lacrosse in that region of the world.

TF: And Bob, one of the strongest takeaways that I had from the Box Championship. It was the first time that a women’s box championship had been hosted, and the fact that the men’s and women’s champions were hosted jointly, according to all the spectators that I spoke to that were there, a resounding success. To the point where a lot of folks telling me that they were looking more forward to going to the women’s game, and these are men’s box fans. But they thought that the environment at the women’s games was just so robust, so compelling that they really, really enjoyed it.

How do you describe that learning, with respect to, particularly because so much about the notion of sixes is kind of the dual gender format?  What do you take away from hosting a massive women’s event jointly and what that might say about kind of plans going forward?

BD: Well, I’ll first say to venue itself was conducive to this event. I mean, the number of fields, the proximity to the hotels, everything as far as logistics was incredible.

The event itself, the women’s event, I’ve been to, I can’t count the number of lacrosse games I’ve been to in my life. That woman’s final was as good of a lacrosse game as I’ve ever been at and it’s up there in the top. I will say that everyone in that arena was on their seat watching that game. It was just outstanding display of skill, passion. It had everything that lacrosse, you can talk about lacrosse.

The men’s final, we know Canada is the best team in the world.

But I thought there was improvements in all our countries. One of the things I did take away was to see the camaraderie with the countries, the pageantry of the colors.

I mean, to watch them in box uniforms in the arena walking around, it was, it was a special, special event. And I think that was obvious not only there, but in our social media presence throughout the world.

TF: So we’ve talked about the handful of topics that I wanted to get to, and the next one up is the development of a new discipline. And that was a cornerstone of what the plan needed to be when you arrived here. And creating a new discipline, which I know that there’s sensitivity around calling it creating a new sport, but there’s also some truth to it, right?

And in some ways, you’re creating a new sport. It’s not an easy thing to do. How do you characterize the process that’s gotten to this point where we are in the development of this new discipline, where we need to be before LA28 in order for you to be satisfied with the process that was undergone from the standpoint of developing a new discipline?

JS: We thought early on we needed to develop a new discipline of the game for two reasons. One is to foster greater international growth and speed of growth around the world, not just in new member countries, but in the opportunity for young people to play the game, without specialization, with smaller numbers. It gives us an opportunity for more play, particularly in a team sport, like lacrosse. So we knew we wanted to use it as a tool to do that. That was one of the criteria going into the development of it.

Second, we needed a discipline that fit within an Olympic framework. We needed smaller numbers, because we know team sports are at a disadvantage fitting into the Olympic quota caps. So we needed a discipline with smaller numbers. We also needed a discipline that had shorter running time for full game. Less time to hold the television or in-stadium audience and frequent scoring to highlight the game.

And we had appointed a Bue Skies working group under leadership of Steve Stenersen that came up with using our criteria, a basic rule set. We trialed that for a year, came up with a final rule set, and then COVID hit, we got knocked back on our heels a bit, but we kept at it.

And the game really took off. There’s a lot of grassroots play, a lot of grassroots play around the world in various leagues, a lot of interest and excitement in the discipline.

And we haven’t yet had a world championship competition. We’ve had a number of regional competitions and World Cup style events. And we did participate in the discipline in The World Games, which helped showcase it to LA28 and the IOC, which I think was a seminal moment for lacrosse. So I would say we’re kind of halfway through the development.

We need to foster continued growth around the world, development of more national teams that are proficient in playing sixes, develop that game at the highest level, maybe

review the rule set one more time prior to the Olympic qualification process starting.

We need to institute the Olympic qualification system. And then the world championships in 2027, which is likely the final qualifier for the LA Games in 28 and then we need to play it in LA.

A lot of work yet to be done, but we at World Lacrosse, myself individually, are exceptionally pleased with where the discipline sits today.

It’s unprecedented, unheard of in international sport that a discipline that was developed on the drawing board 10 years before the Olympic Games is going to be competed in that games. That’s just unheard of.

BD: If anyone was at the World Games and watched the Canada-U.S. women’s final and watched the bronze medal game between Japan and Great Britain, we had 5,500 in that stadium. They were all on their feet the entire game, the excitement, the up and down action.

And that was just one point I want to make. And I think what the PLL has done in the last week, with adding women’s sixes format to a championship style, I think that’s extremely, extremely important for us in our sixes.

TF: You hear from a certain contingent of lacrosse people that that sixes is not lacrosse.

And I kind of roundly dispute it as a notion, but I’m interested as a steward of the sport in a steward of the development of this discipline, what is your retort to the notion, to the criticism that sixes is not lacrosse?

BD: I’ve spoken to different groups on this and the college coaches are the first ones in the U.S. concerned about it. It’s not going to take away our 10-game. It’s not going to take away box lacrosse. It’s one of our disciplines.

I think we had to have it in order to move forward in the Olympics. Jim said that. I mean, we could not bring our big numbers in even if we wanted to. We would not have been where we are.

What that said, if you ask the players that play that discipline, to the person, they love it. They love it. I mean, including the goalies when you would think that’s just a little off, but no, it’s not going to take away from our game. Both our box and our field games are here to stay.

But I think this version, obviously helps with the Olympics side.

It helps with the development in a number of our countries around the world.

JS: Yeah, I think that’s right. I can jump in. There’s no question that this is an exciting new version of the game that will help popularize it around the world. Obviously, there are traditionalists in the existing stronger countries that think this is somehow a deluded or not real lacrosse.

And when I was early on in my tenure here at World Lacrosse, I listened to a group of traditionalists arguing about which was closer to the Creator’s Game, field lacrosse or box lacrosse. 

And I was just shaking my head going, well, neither. The game has evolved. There’s college lacrosse, World Lacrosse, field lacrosse, international field lacrosse, international box lacrosse, sixes, PLL’s version of the game. The game will continue to evolve over the years. And as Bob said, we’re not abandoning box or field.

We’ll have now three disciplines of lacrosse that we invest in, and certain countries will gravitate towards one of the three. We think they’re all fantastic disciplines. Ultimately, we may develop, as the dust starts to settle and we’re hopefully in multiple Olympic Games, we’ll look at some form of urban slash street lacrosse to help foster growth around the world in an additional capacity. So all of them are versions of lacrosse and the more lacrosse the better.

TF: Before moving on from this topic, I do want to revisit, and Bob brought it up, that one of the kind of arguments that I made toward an outright criticism prior to Birmingham and The World Games was that we’ve seen sixes in demonstration formats.

So we’ve never seen it played in an event that had stakes. And once I got an opportunity to see it played in an event that had stakes, and particularly the end of the game, right?

Like that’s so much of where the drama comes and concludes. And again, Bob mentioned it. I gravitate towards the Great Britain-Japan game because it was first. It happened chronologically first in order.

And I just, I thought that it was so validating and Jim, you mentioned that you think it was, I know that there’s a lot of sensitivity about speaking for the IOC, but you think that it played a pivotal role in the sport being accepted.

Can you speak to that moment in particular in terms of what you perceive or what you think, probably kind of like standing next to the observers in terms of how they reacted to it?

JS: Yeah, there was a team of observers from LA 28 in the IOC that attended The World Games in Birmingham. They were looking at a number of host city sports, lacrosse being one.

And I can tell you that they hadn’t had a lot of in-person familiarity with the game prior, any form of the game, but they thought lacrosse was an incredibly dynamic sport with phenomenal athletes playing at incredible speed. And they thought sixes was an ideal format for the Olympic Games.

And I think what tipped it over the top was what Bob talked about earlier. It was one of the most well-attended events of the Birmingham World Games. And not only was there a large attendance there, they were incredibly into the contest and very much passionate about the game and vocal about the game.

And I think all of that came through loudly and clearly to the IOC and LA 28.

BD: Bob, whenever a president gets elected, he’s got his first hundred-day agenda. How do you describe what’s on the priority list for you?

BD: Well, like Jim had talked about before, my goals are development, obviously with my background, but not only developing new countries, I think really helping to support our existing countries. You know, we forget that. We bring countries in. We need to help develop them grow, become sustainable. So I mean, that is one.

Then second, we have to maximize this opportunity for LA 28. I mean, this is so important. You know, who knows? We may not get this again. I hope I’m wrong. But we need in the next four years, but specifically in my first hundred days, we need to get back to focusing on LA 28, what we need to do, how we need to showcase ourselves and then once we get to those games, show the world what we’re all about. So I think that that would be the second area and going right along with that would be what we had just talked about our sixes format with LA 28 and going forward.

And I think the third, and it’s something that started in 2017 when we were an all-volunteer organization and developed into one with a top notch, the best CEO and staff, we need to continue to work with our staff and give them the support. I found out when I first saw our staff go into action, boy, you can get a lot more things done than somebody going down the street and getting a banner. We have the pros in, and I think supporting our staff.

That’s the third, or a half, that would be the half of it.

The B part of that was our governance. We have outstanding membership, passionate membership, and we have to continue positive governance through this organization so we’re successful in the future.

TF: Jim, do you mind just providing an update on Haudenosaunee eligibility as to where that topic currently rests and what the next steps are and how they’ll be taken?

JS: Again, good question. We, World Lacrosse are working very closely with the Haudenosaunee leadership to put their best case forward to the IOC. And we’re working with LA 28 on that. There’s no natural timeline for the process for the IOC for them to make a decision. This would be a decision external to the existing timeline of competition format, qualification system, and the other approval processes that will happen in 2025.

We hope by the end of 2025 we have an opportunity with LA 28 to get in front of the IOC and advocate for the inclusion of the eligibility and eligibility exemption for the Haudenosaunee to participate in those games. Ultimately, we probably have until the 2027 qualification system starts or that start sin 2026, prior to the start of that to continue to advocate with the IOC, for the eligibility of the Haudenosaunee.

Within the framework that’s established by the IOC, LA 28, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the Canadian Olympic Committee, Lacrosse Canada and USA Lacrosse have all said they are very supportive of that outcome. So we’ll continue to work for their eligibility and hopefully we’ll get that across the line.

TF: Well, we’ll continue to monitor that and report on that as developments occur … another thing is the stakes of the Olympic inclusion and one of the outcomes was additional funding for national governing bodies in nations that are not the USA or Canada.

How has that developed over the course of the last year since Olympic inclusion became a certainty?

JS: Well, I think that’s starting to develop a rapid pace. We now have a large number of our national governing bodies who are either recognized by their national Olympic committee or are in the process of being recognized by the national Olympic committee. We have 26 governing bodies who are now recognized by the national Olympic committee and 13 now in progress, and we hope the rest undertake that process quickly.

Once recognized by their national Olympic committee, they are eligible for all sorts of support, whether it’s direct development grants to grow the sport, whether it’s anti-doping funds or funds to conduct anti-doping tests that educate the athletes, safe-sport processes and organizational and governance assistance. And all those NGBS will now be eligible for that that are affiliated with their national Olympic Committees.

And the sport ministries of a number of countries are now beginning to fund the development and support of national teams for various governing bodies.

We are now a member, World Lacrosse, is now a member of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations. There is a solidarity fund, and we have one of our team members at a sport development meeting of ASOIF in Lausanne, Switzerland.

And there is a development fund where NGBs can apply to get $25,000 a year from Olympic solidarity for a four-year grant. And so we’ll queue a number of NGBs up into that program as well.

So there is opportunity for that affiliation of recognition and support and resources. And, in addition to that, we think the brand recognition is just invaluable.

TF: The brand of the sport or the brand of World Lacrosse?

JS: The brand of the sport, the brand of lacrosse. If you go into any school, club, administrator in the world and you say, “I’d like to start a lacrosse club,” or “I need to use your fields or go into a parents’ home and say, “I’d love to have your kids play lacrosse.”

They now can say, “That’s an Olympic sport,” which is the ultimate stamp of approval in the international sporting community. So we think it will help that way as well.

And then once we’re in that Olympic Games platform, the third way it will benefit all of our members and the game is, that outside of World Cup soccer, it is the largest sporting platform in the world. There will be four plus billion people that will consume summer all of lacrosse during the Olympic Games of Los Angeles in 2028. What an unbelievable platform that is.

BD: In addition, and this is typical lacrosse, we’re finding a lot of our countries that have obtained affiliation with their Olympic committee, are helping other countries do the same.

So, country X, ‘this is how we did it, would anyone else like to know the process?”

There are so many different loops to try to get through. And then, along with that, we have a great relationship with the IOC, getting to know people around the world, that we can have some of the people in the IOC end help the local organizing committees.

And especially in Jim’s case, who kind of knows everybody in the landscape of the Olympics, and that has helped us tremendously. Somebody has reached a stone wall and all of a sudden, a call is made and the next thing, our country calls, “I don’t know what happened, but now we’re talking.” So that has been a really big help to us, our countries helping each other.

TF: Jim, my hunch that this is a very American point of view, but it is impossible not to have noticed a lot of the media coverage around Paris, suggesting that it was a resurrection, so to speak, of the Olympic popularity, a renewal … And I think that again, a lot of the same voices turned that point into a, “can you imagine what it’s going to be like when it’s in LA?”

How do you frame that idea in terms of, not luck or catching lightning in a bottle, because I don’t think I’m sure that you either knew that that was going to happen or it didn’t matter, right. Even being in, say, Rio would have been an incredible opportunity, or Tokyo would have been an incredible opportunity for Lacrosse, but to be a part of a cresting wave seems like a cherry on top of the way in which this process has unfolded, no?

JS: I think your underlying premise is correct. I think the entire Olympic family views Paris as not only a rekindling and reigniting the feeling and spirit of the Olympic Games, that this is, once in a lifetime, an incredible spectacle of sport, not just an athletic competition.

And all the things that fall from that, which is spectator interest, sponsoring, interest, viewership, following of the Olympic movement on social media, investment in the Olympic movement, investment in the sports, all flow from that flagship of the Olympic Games and the spirit of The Games.

And Paris was a high point. I think London was exceptional, Sydney before it was exceptional in terms of the spirit of the games, but Paris was amazing.

And the spirit of the games was really shown brightly there, and I think was rekindled.

Now, in the lacrosse community, the athletes themselves, the sport, have no idea what that would mean. Once those athletes enter the Olympic Stadium and march in with their respective Olympic committees and take the field of play and then we have athletes standing in the podium and crowning Olympic champions – that will be an incredible moment for the sport and for those individual athletes.

It will be an amazing, amazing opportunity for our sport, and everyone engaged with it.

TF: A couple of nuts-and-bolts items that I want to end on, but one of the things about this conversation is it kind of wraps up into a, what’s possible when you try type of idea.

I attended the Manchester men’s world championship. I believe it was the first international competition that I attended, and I had a great time, and I thought that the lacrosse was exceptional.

But the rules were pretty brutal. The field was too big, the games and the subs and the penalty time and everything else. And I kind of was just like resigned, like that is just international rules which is what they’re going to be.

And now all of a sudden there is a shot clock in all international lacrosse. Like, if you had told 2010 me that was going to happen, I would have been about as indignant of that possibility as I was in the prospect of getting into the 2028 Olympics.

How do you like at the situation regarding the shot clock as an example for the overall membership of World Lacrosse’s willingness to move forward?

BD: Well, it was highly controversial. There were good points made from the other end. Personally, I didn’t agree with them. I felt all along we needed a shot clock, and I think it was very, very important for our game. And our members agreed.

And I think it took some countries by surprise. But I think when everyone sees, when it eventually gets going, I think this is what’s best for our game. And I’m happy that we now have that. And by the way, it’s only international competition.

That was a lot of what people said, well, this is only for international competition or world championships. So, I was for it. I’m happy it went through. But I understand how people feel.

But I think people were surprised that, it did go through and passed the two-thirds majority to come in.

JS: And we had more than 70% of our members ultimately support the institution of the shot clock. I think all of our members ultimately in the long term will realize that the game needed it and it’s helpful to all of us around the world.

TF: One question that kind of ties together a lot of the topics that we’ve discussed.

You mentioned that there are 13 bids to host the 2027 sixes world championship. What’s that timeline there and are there any expectations that listeners should have around what that event will ultimately look like and mean?

You mentioned it from the context of the qualification. We talked about it from the box championships from the notion of dual gender. And then certainly that if you were to tell me that it’s pretty much anywhere in the world, I might not be surprised.

What should folks be ready for when it comes to this kind of blank canvas with respect to what could end up being one of the crown jewels of the World Lacrosse event calendar?

JS: There’s a couple of keys to that event. One is this will qualify teams to the Olympic Games, and as I’ve seen over the course of my career, Olympic trials or any event that qualifies athletes or teams for an Olympic Games have an incredible amount of increased interest and drive for those events and commercial opportunities around those events,

and other international competitions or even national competitions. So I think we’ll benefit from that as a sport.

Second is we’ve capped this at no more than 20 teams. Our members voted last weekend.

It’ll be somewhere between 16 to 20 teams. And then we’ll have continental qualifiers on all four continents to bring teams to our final destination.

I don’t know one will be around the world. We’ve got a lot of U.S. cities; we’ve got a lot of good cities around the world. Ultimately, we’ll make a decision that is in the best interests first of the athletes playing, and second in terms of driving popularity and growth of the sport. I think we’re going to end up with a great site and a competition that will be the most significant competition that will have been held to date by World Lacrosse.

TF: About when do you anticipate wanting to make that decision?

JS: Timeline, we will bring our final decision to the World Lacrosse board by the end of the second quarter, 2025.

TF: Got it. So over the course of the next six or so months.

And will the men’s and women’s competitions be held jointly?

JS: I should have mentioned that. As we saw in Utica with the incredible reception of the men and women being together, men and women’s world Championship in 2027 for sixes will be held in the same location.

TF: Got it. Well, certainly look forward to that news and really appreciate both your time.

Congratulations on, again, not just the progress in recent times, but after nearly a decade, certainly, Bob, as you mentioned, many, many decades of pounding away at the stone.

I really wanted to, I wanted this conversation to be a little bit of a victory lap because I’ve been in the sport of lacrosse professionally for 17 years and the number of endeavors were set out to do something and didn’t achieve their goal far, far out-number, those that did.

And again, reflecting on from what started in 2017, it’s incredible how kind of close to what was laid out, really has been. And again, I think that’s pretty rare. And I think that both of you deserve a lot of credit for doing what you said you were going to do almost a decade ago.

JS: Very appreciated, Terry. I’d like to conclude with this. I’m incredibly excited to work under Bob’s leadership for the next four years into LA 28. That would mark 11 years for me at World Lacrosse. I was at USA Wrestling for 10 years, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee for 10 years and I’ll be happy to be somewhere, particularly in lacrosse for 11 years and exceed those two 10 years.

This is an incredible game and Japan Lacrosse, whom we talked about earlier has a motto that says lacrosse makes friends. So not only is it a game that has the best of the Olympic ideals, but it’s the medicine game and it makes friends and really is a great sport, both dynamic on the field and off. Bob’s been engaged for 40 years, been on the board for the last eight and he knows when we’re going, he’s been a key driver in that direction and we’re really looking forward to his leadership over the next four years.

BD: Well, I will also second that Jim. I have a saying – we’re all in. And that needs to be our motto around the world. We’re all in. We’re here, but we have a long way to go.

My last four years in with World Lacrosse ends at the Olympics. I can’t run anymore. So I’m here for the next four years and I’m looking forward to working with Jim, staff, our stakeholders, our members, our continental federations, all of them. We’re all in together.