Sunday Column: Now Is Not The Time To Stop Feeding Penn State’s Cash Cow

What defines the health of a major college athletics program?

Is it success in every sport?

Is it the ability of its teams to generate revenue, through tickets sold or television contracts?

Is it the rate at which its student-athletes graduate?

Or is it simply how good its football team is?

The answers differ depending on whom you ask, and most athletic administrators would lobby for an “E. All of The Above” option. But if your answer to the last question is “pretty good” or better, chances are your athletic department is in good shape.

On Friday, Penn State’s Board of Trustees voted, by a comfortable margin, to push through plans for an eight-figure renovation of the Lasch Building, also known as Nittany Lion football headquarters.

This building is already the pearl of the athletic department’s dozen-plus facilities, replete with one of the nation’s most impressive weight rooms, lobby décor that would put some Fortune 500 buildings to shame, and a meeting room in which every one of the several dozen chairs is better than the one in your office. So, naturally, the latest green-lit renovations will include upgrades to the weight room, to the lobby, and a hydrotherapy pool.

Ah, college football.

The optics of waterfalls and bowling alleys in football facilities have never been great for higher education but are particularly eyebrow-raising during a pandemic that has dealt body blows to bottom lines in every nook and cranny of society, as former Penn State assistant coach and current trustee Jay Paterno pointed out in his explanation for his vote against the plan.

What Jay should know by now, though – besides the fact that Penn State’s athletic budget is separate from the larger university budget – is that the healthier the program that resides in Lasch is, the healthier all of Penn State’s other athletic programs will be.

In the 2018-19 reporting year, the most recent data available on the U.S. Department of Education’s website, Penn State Athletics tallied just over $151 million in total expenses and roughly $164.5 million in total revenue. Football accounted for $48.5 million of those expenses and $100 million of that revenue. It’s the same story just about everywhere else you look around the country – and that’s the point. Forty-eight million in upgrades for a facility that is not exactly crumbling might seem excessive, but it’s a child’s allowance compared to the $128 million price tag on Michigan’s recent football performance center renovation or the $92 million Auburn is pouring in its new football hub outfitted with two recording studios and a flight simulator (presumably so players can slap on a pilot’s hat and expedite the search for the Tigers’ NEXT football coach when newly-hired Bryan Harsin gets canned in 10 months for not going 15-0.) And when you measure Penn State’s modest spending spree against those of its college football contemporaries, it’s tougher to argue against the opinion of another trustee, former linebacker Brandon Short, that Penn State should be investing even more money in the football program.

Don’t get caught up in the big numbers, because this is a simple equation: Impressive facilities help attract high-profile recruits…high profile-recruits mature into high-profile players…high-profile players win high-profile games. Those wins prompt fans to shell out thousands of dollars for the privilege to sit on an unforgiving metal bleacher seven times a year, revenue that keeps Penn State’s other sports operating at Division-I levels during a time – that started even before the pandemic – when schools without successful football programs are forced to cut other sports altogether. Sure, Penn State will pass ‘GO’ and scarf up its share of Big Ten television revenue, as well as its share of conference bowl revenue, whether it wins 12 games or four in a given season, but when the athletic department projects 700,000 home football tickets sold each year in its annual budget – to say nothing of parking or seat contribution fees – you want to be damn sure you’re putting a good product on the field. 

If Penn State, or any other major program, ever decides that it doesn’t want to endlessly feed the football beast, administrators are left with a few options: 1) Shift the non-revenue sports to Division II or even club level and thereby drastically reduce overall expenses; 2) Invest far more heavily in men’s basketball, the only other college sport with anywhere close to the revenue potential of football; or 3) Find a whole lot more deep-pocketed donors who are willing to write big checks and aren’t particular about what they’re being used for.

Otherwise, the math doesn’t work. And that’s in a normal year. Yes, Penn State had a football season during the pandemic, but it was a season without fans in Beaver Stadium, which means a projected revenue loss of $20-25 million, athletic director Sandy Barbour told reporters last month. Fortunately, that financial haircut is well shy of the $90 million that was feared if Penn State did not play any games but $20-25 million isn’t chicken scratch, either.

The pandemic isn’t over yet, and there are likely tough financial decisions ahead in the coming months and years for Barbour and university president Eric Barron – and their respective successors – and Penn State’s trustees. Continued investment in the engine of the athletics program, as gaudy as those investments may seem in the current climate, is not a difficult decision.

It’s the only decision.