Penn State coach James Franklin didn’t mince words on Tuesday evening when asked about the ongoing debate regarding Penn State’s financial investments into facilities and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), and the degree to which they should or should not increase.
“I don’t think it really should be a discussion,” Franklin said. “I don’t think it really can be a discussion. Because when you’re Penn State and you’re in the Big Ten, the reality is if you choose to and want to compete at the very highest level, you can’t pick and choose what you’re going to compete in.”
Contextually, Franklin’s comments come in the opening days of a hotly contested election for three of the alumni seats on Penn State’s Board of Trustees. While the results of that election will have a limited effect on the future of Penn State football, it does serve as something of a referendum on how exactly Penn State stakeholders view the ongoing conversation regarding facilities and NIL.
For its part, Penn State athletics — which operates a budget independent from the academic side of the university — reported $181.2 million in revenue for the most recently completed 2021-22 fiscal year (fiscal years conclude in June], according to the the department’s annual financial report. That figure marks the the highest in the previous 12 years — all that Penn State currently makes available — and represents the swath of time spanning Penn State football’s first season following the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, and perhaps more importantly from a business perspective, the return of fans to Beaver Stadium.
The athletic department also reported expenses at an all-time high to the tune of $170.5 million, an increase roughly $10-15 million more than comparable fiscal years prior to COVID-19. Penn State, like every nearly every athletic department in the country, posted losses during the 2020-21 fiscal year. In Penn State’s case, $106 million in revenue up against $130 million in expenses during the year which saw limited attendance or no fans in the stands across the nation.
In Franklin’s eyes, if you aren’t first, you’re last. And if you aren’t proactive, you’re already playing catchup.
“I think the other thing is you guys remember this discussion is very similar to a discussion we had 10 years ago when I was talking about facilities and people were looking at me like I was crazy,” Franklin said. “And the reality is that people that were aggressive on the front end with facilities, then obviously they’re able to shift their focus to the new challenge. So the reality is, as you guys have heard me before, whether it’s facility, whether it’s staff size, whether it’s alignment, whether it’s NIL, whether it’s all these thing,s if you truly want to compete at the highest level, then you can’t say we’re going to be competitive in these three areas and not in this one.
“Where we are as a top 10 program, those areas that you are behind become glaring, obvious issues to people that really understand and study college football and college athletics. So I think your your point is a good one. That’s why I was very pleased that over the last couple of years, we’ve been able to make significant impact in facilities. You hear people talk all the time, you hear recruits talk about it all the time, the impact that it’s had.”
A rewind to what Franklin said in 2014 not long after taking the job. Since then Penn State has spent millions on Lasch Building renovations and Holuba Hall upgrades, generally all funded through fundraising with a small portion in recent years financed through debt servicing.
“To put it in a little bit of perspective for you, when I was at Vanderbilt, we had the last-place facilities in the SEC,” Franklin said back in 2014. “It wasn’t even close. And our facilities at Vanderbilt (were) better than what they are at Penn State right now, which is probably a little shocking to people. It’s everything. It’s the indoor facility. Our turf needs to be replaced outside and inside. The carpet. The paint. The branding. The furniture. The technology. What I would recommend (the media) do is you get on the Internet and you do some research on what does Oregon have? What does USC have? What does Oklahoma State have? … I think it’s important for us to be aware of what’s really out there.
“It’s going to be getting people to support that vision and jump on board with us through fundraising and those types of things. I think Penn State has, and wants to again, be able to provide a first-class experience for the student-athletes. They’ve done that for a long time, and there’s just some things we need to tweak and get back right. It’s become a little bit of an arms race in college football if you look at what’s going on, and we want to be a part of that.”
To some extent the outcome of the ongoing election that backdrops Franklin’s comments will pose more of an alignment issue than a functional ability for Penn State Athletics to raise and spend funds, but in the wake of now former Penn State men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry’s departure — which seems to have been at least partially a result of lacking NIL resources and alignment — the borderline infighting displayed on sites like Twitter and Facebook from lettermen, NIL contingents and Board of Trustees candidates showcased the kind of stick-in-bicycle-wheel messaging that can hijack fundraising efforts before they begin. In turn, even if a handful of board members aren’t enough to prevent board approvals and recommendations, they can certainly present something far less than the unified front Franklin might wish for.
Franklin also pivoted to a different talking point on Tuesday evening, arguing that the broad talking point — that Penn State has never really been a trend-setter with facilities — is a misguided one.
“You know, I remember Bob White (assistant AD for premium seating and co-captain of Penn State’s 1986 team] talking about the year they won the national championship, they had the indoor facility,” Franklin said. “And they were one of the only programs in the country that had an indoor facility at the time and they were able to practice that entire period in the indoor facility. And Bob talked about having a big impact on the national championship.
“It’s interesting when some of the storylines had been well, we didn’t have these things in the past. Well, we really did. That football facility (Franklin is now pointing at the Lasch Building) was [one of the] best facilities in all of football. College teams from all over the country, NFL teams came to visit it. So I don’t know where that storyline came from, but it’s not accurate. So we’ve made significant ground up in the last year. But again, we’ve got to keep the pedal to the floor. I think we obviously just saw some decisions that weren’t completely made [because of NIL] in the basketball program – but [NIL] was a big part of it.”
While the ongoing board elections may not be the end all be all, and as Penn State’s main NIL collective looks to work towards more success in 2023, it’s safe to say Penn State is reaching the Rubicon either way. What lies on the other side only time will tell.
