Why the BOT Doesn't Care.
- Thread starter JohnJumba
- Start date
If all they care about is money, why spend it on a coach? Same results could be attained with a 2 million per year guy, no?
I truly believe that many on the BOT are not proud of Penn State's football heritage. I believe also that many of the administration is not proud. Are there any administrators on this board who can provide some insight?
Makes it look like they care. You're talking about idiots.who.pizzed away money on claims without establishing any credibility. It's not their money.
Yes, and the BOT has rigged the membership so the opposition has no real voice.Brandon Short cares.
Good question. Think the concern is more about $38mm in ticket sales and who knows how much in attendant NLC contributions.
Could PSU fill the stadium with the results produced by a coach making less money? Who knows, and therein lies the rub. Me thinks that the powers that be don't want to run the risk so they pay Franklin. Think of it as a costly insurance policy that expires as soon as there are problems at the gate.
Yes, and the BOT doesn't care. See above.
They don't care if he wins or loses. Period
Couldn't one say that it's simply the PSU product that generates the ticket sales and current donations?
If it were JF, wouldn't he have fund raised the money for the upgrades he wants already?
What is the plan with the new money he got assistant coaches?
The market pushes the price up. Don Brown left Michigan making $1.1 million a year. His replacement with no prior DC experience is getting $1 million.
One could say that PSU is the product, but a skein of sub-.500 records might reduce demand for it. Contemplating that possibility has a powerful laxative effect on Ms. Excellence.
Remember the ominous remarks from maybe 10 years ago....................... "de-emphasize football"................
Just curious, what does it pay for if it’s not earmarked for his salary or football operations in general? Does bowl money go directly into the athletic department’s operating account to support other non-revenue sports? I don’t believe it can be commingled with direct state appropriation which is where (I think) Coach Franklin’s salary is paid.
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Franklin's salary is paid from the state appropriation? So much for a self-sustaining athletic department.
This is purely a guess on my part but I would be willing to bet that his agent negotiated that at a minimum a piece of his salary is paid from state appropriations, especially now that they’re talking a 10 year contract.
It was done for one reason, and only one reason. Sandy Barbour is scared out of her mind at the prospects of actually having to do her job.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, prevents any member of the Board from "having a voice" - if they wanted to exercise it.
I agree. Don't know how that has anything to do with the inanity that Franklin's contract calls for an earmarking of the state appropriation to pay all or part of his salary.
I disagree. Barbour and Barron have 0 F's to give about spending other people's money. In fact, they never saw someone else's dollar that they didn't want to spend. The BOT just rubber stamped it because Barbour and Barron are clearly experts in their field and know what they are doing.
Oh wait...
I believe I stated about Barbour and Barron earlier in this thread.
They can voice what they like. The odds of changing anything the BoT is doing is zero.
I can't disagree with you - that the deck is stacked. But having a voice is quite different from getting your way - and one can't really expect to achieve the later, without at least exercising the first.
The BoT doesn't answer to Barbour and Barron. The reverse is true
To understand the BOT's motivation re: football, you have just one question to answer: Why does a university have a football team?
The answer to that question is two-fold.
1) To enhance recruitment of students. Not athletes, but general student attraction to come to Penn State for their degree. Football teams are a marketing tool for attracting students to the university.
2) To pay for all of the other athletic programs. Which, again, comes back to being able to attract students to Penn State.
So, as long as you can put a product on the field that can attract students to the university, winning championships is only interesting in its ability to enhance the attractiveness of Penn State as a place for students to spend their undergraduate years. I would contend that perpetual 9-3 seasons is satisfactory from a BOT standpoint. Anything better is only marginally increasing the attractiveness of Penn State to prospective students.
If that is all true, and maybe it is, why does Penn State spend well over $50 million per year in operating costs for the football team (among the six highest spenders in the nation), commit the University to paying the football Head Coach approximately $100 million over the next ten years (highest in the Big Ten, until we see what MSU has taken on for Mel Tucker - which rumor has it is being paid for by a wealthy booster), and take on increasingly higher and higher debt to pay for football infrastructure - like the $100+ million for Lasch renovations?
Something doesn't add up. Right?
One thing I can tell you for sure, nothing would make many members of the BOT giddier than to have a football team win something that they (the Trustees) could brag about. Maybe they are willing to spend their way into the poorhouse to get there, but are just really, really bad at doing it?
All of athletics, including Franklins salary, are self supporting. Unlike many other schools, no appropriation or tuition dollars are used to support their operations.
She has not tbe first clue. She is a high school level AD - at best. But a box has been checked!
Aside from Maryland and Rutgers - who aren't yet getting Big Ten full shares - no Big Ten university provides any meaningful subsidy to Athletics Operating costs from tuition or fee charges. They don't have to, not with the gigantic TV contracts. Nor do any other Power Five football program schools (aside from a couple ACC schools, and some that charge a token fee of $50 or so). So, among P5 football schools, "self-supporting" wrt Operating Costs is pretty much a given, and certainly not unique to Penn State.
Of course, Operations are just 1/2 of the pie. Capital Costs, as we all know, are the other half, and increasing in weight. And that is where the differences arise.
Georgia paid for around $150 in athletics capital projects in recent years - 90+% of it financed through athletics donations from boosters. How did "self-supporting" Penn State pay for the $100+ million Lasch Renovation?
Penn State Athletics claiming to be "self-supporting" is akin to someone saying they are independent because they pay for their own groceries and utility bills (Operational) - but they have to rely on someone else to pay their mortgage (Capital).
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I see your point, so why didn't it happen earlier? All it would have take is for someone to put together a proposal for them to vote on. Could it be that Ms. Excellence is Horatio at the Bridge?
First $35mm from Athletic Department reserves and donations. Borrowed $40mm. Remainder TBD.
Reserves? They actually said that? They did try to solicit donations, last I saw they had raised about $8 million over two years - although I expect most of that was more of a reclassification of donations that were coming in to the Athletic Department anyway, and were then "earmarked" for Lasch. Fungability, you know.
Penn State Football's Operating Budget is about $55 Million this year - Franklin's compensation (which is now $8.5 Million) is a pretty significant chunk of that.
For what it is worth, Penn State's operating budget is closer to $4 Billion, give or take. Which is still a very big number, of course. The $8 Billion, give or take, is when Hershey Medical Center is included - even though it is a separate entity.
The bulk of it, the University borrowed money, and paid for it. Because athletics does not, did not, will not have it.
That's OK though, because the University's debt has only quadrupled under Eric Barron (from $900 Million to $3.5 Billion) and "Penn State desperately needs to take on more debt - as part of its business strategy". One might think that quote is an inane joke, but that was the actual sentiment expressed by multiple members of the Penn State Board.
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