The Penn State Nittany Lions have over $500 million in athletics related debt. It's no wonder the school wants to see the football team more competitive in 2026.
Despite making the College Football Playoff semifinal in 2024, the program fired head coach James Franklin after a 3-3 start in 2025.
The school has high expectations for the football team. And major donors wanted a change after watching Franklin struggle against elite competition during his tenure at PSU.
The school had good reasons to keep the fans and donor base happy.
Per Daniel Libit of Sportico, PSU reported approximately $535 million in athletics-related debt for the fiscal year 2026. The number crushes Florida State's $437 million figure for the fiscal year 2025.
The Nittany Lions debt figure was reported amid the project to renovate Beaver Stadium at an estimated cost of $700 million.
Penn State deputy athletics director for internal operations, Vinnie James, told On3 in December that PSU remains on schedule for the stadium renovation.
“Beaver Stadium is undergoing the largest renovation in college football history,” James said. “We’re approaching $700 million in renovation right now. We remain on schedule, targeting a completion date of fall of 2027.”
James hopes that fans will see improvement near the visiting sideline during games in the fall.
“In the 2026 season, what our fans can expect to see is, you’ll actually begin to see the structure of the new West side or the visiting sideline,” James said. “You’ll see that structure come to form.
Still won’t be completed, obviously, everything that’s behind it, but that structure will start to really be showing itself... And then a lot of the work that’s going on is infrastructure work behind it.”
PSU and Florida State are hardly the only schools dealing with budget concerns. Big Ten program Rutgers is facing a near $517 million deficit since joining the conference in 2014.
Keith Sargeant of NJ Advance Media reported Rutgers athletic department had a record deficit of $78 million for the fiscal year report for the 2024-25 academic year. I
Last year, reports came out that Colorado is dealing with a "budget crisis" amid extending head coach Deion Sanders for five years and $54 million.
College sports can be an expensive and risky endeavor. Hopefully, the cost is worth it for Penn State.