College lacrosse gave women's championships a clean receipt this week, because Sports Media Watch's tracker reported that Northwestern-North Carolina averaged 470,000 viewers, up 83 percent and the highest women's lacrosse championship audience on record, while the Princeton-Notre Dame men's final averaged 778,000. [1]

That pairing is the point, not an embarrassment, since the women's number is not made stronger by pretending the men's benchmark does not exist; it is made stronger by naming the benchmark, seeing the record anyway, and giving readers a proportion rather than a slogan.

Women's-sports discourse often moves too quickly from one success to a universal claim, but a volleyball crowd, a basketball window, a softball round, and a lacrosse final are different products with different calendars, school bases, network slots, traditions, and ceilings, so the fact that lacrosse can now put a record number on the board makes the wider argument more disciplined rather than less ambitious.

The useful question is no longer whether women's championships can draw attention, because some can and this one did; the next question is which events can become repeatable media inventory and which remain excellent annual receipts, and lacrosse has earned that second question with a number that can be compared next spring. [1]

-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos