Paraphrasing Charles Pinckney in 1798...
"Millions for athletics, but not one cent for tribute."
"Millions for athletics, but not one cent for tribute."
So much for "self-sustaining" athletic departments.
- Thread starter GrimReaper
- Start date
He's already on the record as saying it does.
It seems like a worthwhile conversation to be had here as well, hence my asking it here.
You'd have better luck following Hansel's breadcrumbs than his logic.
I'd say the answer is "yes", but difficult to impossible, and I'm a heavy lean to "impossible," to quantify.
You know I love bread.
I tend to agree with the "impossible to quantify" sentiment, though I think it'd be similarly impossible to argue it's nothing.
Surely, to the community/businesses/local economy, there is significant and wide-reaching impact, even if the science behind the numbers is nonsense ranging from overly optimistic or pessimistic, depending on the perspective.
Also likely another conversation for another day, but to be clear, I'm personally in favor of a full-scale divorce of higher education from a multibillion dollar sports/entertainment industry. The two don't belong in bed with each other and never have and it's inexcusable that the higher education stakeholders allowed it to get to this point without prior intervention to formally separate their interests, which stopped aligning decades before our current juncture.
In any case, maybe a bit of an exercise in pearl-clutching to get fired up over something happening at Clemson, whether its inevitability of arriving at Penn State is real or not?
For the three cents it's worth, athletic departments as they are currently constituted and run couldn't exist independent of the schools unless they are prepared to largely forego facilities construction of any significance.
They can still keep the Beav ... keep it before or after the advertiser.
Hopefully they partner up with Harry's (the razors company) ...
I mean, they also wouldn’t carry 31 sports. The only reason to do it is support the mission of the university, which in turn typically generates giving not only to the athletic department, but also back to the university.
Football and men’s basketball could operate as independent entities fairly comfortably.
PSU Basketball? Not on the basis of recent numbers.
Football looks okay as reported. But eliminating every other sport, the Athletic Department is left with over $20mm of "unallocated" expense. Is this amount simply gone with the wind? I doubt it.
There is an entire administrative state that exists on behalf of all those other sports that isn’t on the books for those sports.
Trust, men’s hoops and football would be profitable independent of the university.
Because I understand how things work? Oh and have great sources that are diverse and knowledgeable and span the university.
It’s fun having conversations with you! Keep swinging at those windmills champ. You’ll defeat one soon.
Oh, you have diverse sources? As for "knowlegeable," you wouldn't know one if it bit you on your fat a$$.
Because I understand how things work? Oh and have great sources that are diverse and knowledgeable and span the university.
It’s fun having conversations with you! Keep swinging at those windmills champ. You’ll defeat one soon.
I mean, unless we’re going to pretend that the TV $/NCAA shares aren’t earned by men’s basketball, then of course they are profitable. We drop men’s hoops, and we obviously can’t cash those checks any more.
serious question: why should universities have athletic departments and spend money on coaches, and travel and team equipment and everything else a team costs? How is it integral to university mission? Many universities have money making businesses as part of their organizations that conduct certain types research, privatize IP, rent office space etc. Football, basketball, maybe women VB and BB, maybe wrestling would fall under the money making heading and could be considered in similar vein; as money making enterprises. So a university could justify having those teams in the same money making category. But why all the other sports?
It really just goes back to the American culture, and how our sports work…why are high school, lower level of college, and middle school sports tied to schools? It’s how things evolved in our country, and it’s not really something that you can wave a wand and untangle at this point.
You may not be able to wave a wand and untangle it, but it's definitely untangling to a large degree. In a lot of places, in a lot of sports, the high school offering is becoming completely secondary. I know, from the baseball perspective, this is true (and from others in other sports, I hear the same). You work out in the winter with your travel program. You go to showcases/evals/camps in the winter. Spring rolls around and you just want to get through the high school season without getting hurt (HS coaches are notorious for blowing out arms by only pitching a couple kids, and making them throw tons of pitchers per game and innings per year). Then you jump into your main season - the summer travel ball, and then you go into fall travel. The HS season seems like an afterthought unless you make a run deep into states. In other areas kids don't even play HS, because the teams and the coaches are so bad.
There aren't many middle school programs, in any sport, around here at this point ... if you want to play hoops, for example, you play for a town-based program not affiliated with the schools, and then you also play AAU in the "offseason." Only a few schools still bother with middle school programs.
Football is becoming yawn-worthy at the public school level ... all the bigger, faster, better players are now going to expensive private schools (50K-70K a year schools - with most of the tuition picked up). That phenomenon has REALLY ramped up lately. Lots of kids doing travel football now, as well. And then going "camping" from an early age. But those private schools are basically becoming lower-level college football. College coaches love it because it's one stop shopping. Go to a "scout day" for these privates and see just about everyone in one day (the schools themselves coordinate to have their showcases all on one day, so college coaches can drive from one school to the next and see all the kids in one or two days).
Hell, that's even happening in baseball ... my boys both joined a very serious travel program this year, which regularly produces some draft picks and major D1 kids up and down their rosters (that may be common down south, but not up here in New England) ... they're going to be one of the only kids (maybe the only kid) on their 30-man squads that are going to a public high school.
So you're seeing the sports focus clearly shifting away from high schools, and the serious kids all consolidating into these private schools [they hang out on the travel squads and talk each other into going to these places ... which also usually have some tie-in with a private school (like a private school coach is also a travel director or coach)].
Previously all Clemson students rc'vd free admission to all athletic events. Apparently th athletic department felt that was unsustainable, thus the new fee.
Lots here, but I think some of it is a bit overblown, or based on regional experiences.
Here in South Jersey, everyone plays high school baseball/football/basketball, and takes it pretty seriously (and most middle schools field sports programs in the more popular sports). There are some kids jumping to private schools just like they did a generation ago, but also plenty of public schools with strong teams/individuals. Some schools pull in more from elsewhere than others (both public and private), but don’t know of any serious athletes in the major sports around here skipping, or minimizing, their high school seasons (even when travel baseball/basketball takes on a bigger role).
Things like Legion and Little League have taken a big hit from travel, but don’t see it at all in HS baseball.
And there are plenty of high school coaches that think travel coaches are ruining their players, so it goes both ways.
Look at universities in Europe. At most, they have club sports. They focus on academics and research.
Americans on European universities: Bo-ring!
I was gonna say, Nate— don’t even bother. Some of us appreciate you, though.
It’s mostly for my own amusement at internet tough guys being played off to Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men.
I guess on the bright side for our dearly departed, at least he’s not overweight.
Not to mention, without the affiliation, would people care? People like Penn State because they went to school there - no one would follow a State College Nittany Lions semi pro team.
This is a thorny problem (along with staffing the fundraising office, but that's another story). The majority of graduates are now World Campus and have never set foot on a piece of university owned property. Their loyalty to Penn State is close to zero, and I mean coming from the negative side of the number line. Most of them have no interest in football unless it's soccer, and really no connections to other students or faculty.
The big donor group at the moment is graduation= 1970's and 80's, with a big drop off to the 90's and another big drop to the early 2000's. This tracks closely to age = 55+ and the demographics of campus at that time: majority white male and still PA residents. And we all married each other so Penn State has one of the highest alumni spouse ratings in the US, but donations are almost exclusively one per household.
Things could be going pretty well, because the 70's + 80's + 90's graduates are in their peak earning ranges and are very generous. But the BOT and Alumni Association performed ritual seppuku in 2011 and continue to find more sharp knives and more places to stab. Now they've disenfranchised all the alumni, have several lawsuits tee'd up, and academic ratings that have the other Big10 school administrations saying "We might be having problems, but at least we're not as bad as Penn State".
So as far as pissing future donors off, I'd say Penn State has done an exceptionally diverse and equitable job of pissing off just about everyone but Brandon Short... who doesn't seem to have much cash left in his pocket to donate.
Would they open a Train Station in the stadium and sell Release Valves and Fast Freights? I could get behind that.
I’m not sure about the “majority of graduates are now World Campus and never set foot on a piece of university owned property” take? World campus graduates now TOTAL approx 37,000 all time. Fall 2023 semester graduates from World Campus was 1,260 total.
The number of all-time World Campus alumni surpasses 37,000 | Penn State University
The number of students who have earned their degree online through Penn State World Campus has exceeded the 37,000 mark. Graduates who earned their degree through World Campus are part of the community of 750,000 Penn State alumni.
www.psu.edu
Also, not all alumni feel disenfranchised as you surmise. I’m alumni and I don’t feel disenfranchised. I know a lot of others who don’t feel disenfranchised either. Please, don’t lump me into the “old angry white guys pissed off about a statue club.”
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