Hook: Why Soccer Can Be a Long-Term Revenue Growth Opportunity for Penn State

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the last few years, you are eminently aware of one thing here in Happy Valley: Penn State’s athletic department wants your money!

From sponsorships to donations to tickets to fees and beyond, it seems like everything associated with Penn State sports is now monetized. Why, even our beloved football stadium has huge signs on the outside touting a company I had never heard of before they were announced as the name of the field. 

Not that it’s been a boon to the football team – they have a rather pedestrian 4-3 record in the stadium ever since the name was added. And only 1-3 against Big Ten opponents. Heck, even the hockey team is 0-1 in the stadium since the name addition.

On top of that, it seems like Penn State’s iconically plain football jerseys, which have sported only minimal insignias for years, may soon sport a corporate logo (aside from adidas). Jersey patch deals are now the new moneymakers in college football. 

In the last week both Notre Dame and Ohio State announced their athletics teams would now sport a corporate logo on their jerseys. Ohio State is reportedly getting paid $17 million a year from JPMorganChase for their jersey patch, and the Fighting Irish are receiving $20 million from SoFi.

And according to the Sports Business Journal, there are now well over 30 colleges that have a jersey patch deal – which is a fairly large number considering the NCAA only approved them in January, and the first day the patches could be worn was this past Saturday. 

But as I said, and as we all know, the new age of college athletics is upon us, and this new age costs money. Which has to come from somewhere. And the Penn State athletic department is not immune to this new world order.

So where do they get more money?

Well, obviously football is the cash cow not only at Penn State but pretty much everywhere around our country. According to Penn State’s most recent annual financial report submitted to the NCAA, for the period from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025, the Penn State football team generated over $146 million – 57% of all the revenue generated by the athletic department.

Now, the football team did spend over $89 million, but that still creates a “profit” of $57 million for the fiscal year. Not a bad business model if you can get it! 

So, maximizing revenue via football is and has to be the number one well the university goes to for more money for Penn State athletics.

But eventually that well will stabilize (let’s hope it doesn’t dry up!). So, what to do then? What other options are there for Penn State sports to make more money so that in 20, 50, 100 years the athletic department is still self-funded?

Well, the five most watched sports leagues in this country, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, are football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer. And TV viewership is what drives a good portion of revenue for sports these days. Of that $146 million in Penn State football revenue, more than a third of it – almost $50 million – was media rights money. 

The other big revenue generator for Penn State football was ticket sales, parking and concessions. All the income generated by the games themselves. This totaled over $53 million. Between ticket sales and media money, Penn State more than covered their football expenses. Anything else — donations, Big Ten distributions from post-season revenue, etc. — was all proverbial gravy.

So, there are two big clues as to where Penn State should be looking to increase revenues. First, sports that are watched a lot, and second, sports that have the ability to draw large crowds of people.

Which means they should be looking to the basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer teams. So, let’s briefly look at each in regards to media money and crowd possibilities – knowing full well in advance that the numbers will not approach those of the football team.

Interestingly though, basketball at Penn State is generating a reasonable amount of media money – almost $9 million according to the PSU financial report. But baseball, hockey, and soccer are generating none. So, there is clearly room for growth in those sports. (Note: basketball, hockey and soccer include money from both the women’s and men’s teams.)

As for ticket sales, parking and concessions, hockey is the non-football leader here with almost $2.4 million. Basketball is next with a little over $1.8 million. Baseball generates only $29,000, and soccer a mere $3,000. 

I think we can agree that hockey, due to regular sell-outs, has less of an opportunity for growth in these areas than the other sports. We can’t easily add more seats to Pegula Ice Arena. Now, both basketball and baseball have room for growth in these areas, but again, that growth is capped by the size of the Bryce Jordan Center and Medlar Field.

Which brings us to soccer.  

The United States just played host to the entire world’s quadrennial sporting spectacular not named the Olympics. The FIFA World Cup filled 60,000+ seat stadiums and generated billions of media views. Our own country’s men’s soccer league – MLS – has survived for decades, continues to grow, and has Messi (the Pele of his era) playing for Miami. 

The long-term opportunities for college soccer revenue growth are pretty huge. Starting next year, the NCAA will be splitting the men’s soccer season between the fall and spring semesters. Although they have several well-thought-out reasons for doing this, the one that will possibly have the greatest effect is being able to schedule most games on weekends. We all know how well mid-week games in any college sports are attended. Even college football games played on days other than Saturday (or Friday night) often suffer attendance issues. 

In addition, this will align the season more closely with the various professional leagues all around the world. People knowing when they can watch soccer means there’s a better chance they will watch soccer. And if the sport gets very popular, moving games in the spring into Beaver Stadium opens up a lot of ticket, parking and concession opportunities. 

So, if I was Pat Kraft and I was planning for where I might be getting more money 20 years down the road, I would start fully funding scholarships for every one of the allowed 28 roster spots on both the men’s and women’s soccer teams, start moving some NIL money their way, and win some national championships. And convince the other Big Ten ADs to do something similar. Bring as much attention as you can to the sport, because to the question of what sport provides the best long-term opportunity in terms of revenue growth to add to football, soccer — the rest of the world’s football —  is the answer.