Lacrosse gave ESPN two audience receipts rather than one generic growth story, with Sports Media Watch's tracker saying Princeton-Notre Dame averaged 778,000 viewers for the men's national championship, up 37 percent from last year and officially the highest audience for the event since 2007. [1]

The previous day's Northwestern-North Carolina women's national championship averaged 470,000 viewers, up 83 percent from last year and the highest on record for that event. [1]

That carries forward the paper's June 2 frame that lacrosse printed two championship audience receipts, one men's and one women's, each with its own ceiling and history, because the point is not to make lacrosse into football but to notice when smaller rights properties produce measurable growth. [1]

The gender split is not decorative: a men's final reaching its best audience since 2007 and a women's final setting its own record tell different business stories, because each property has its own history, schedule, promotion and future rights case. [1]

The caveat belongs beside the celebration, since Sports Media Watch warns that Nielsen methodology changes skew comparisons to past years, especially before out-of-home viewing entered estimates, meaning the records still matter and the instrument still matters too. [1]

-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos