Penn State's financials from the 2024-25 year were released, and they were shocking for both positive and negative reasons.
Penn State's financials were opened up on Thursday, and the dollars were made public for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, which goes from June to July. The dollars that were presented were from the season that the Nittany Lions made a run to the College Football Playoff Semifinal.
In that year, the Football program itself netted $57.5 million. They were $57.5 million in the green, and when the dust settled, Penn State's entire athletic department netted just $223,679 dollars.
Both figures had put my jaw on the ground. The fact that the revenue for the football program was nearly $150 million with a profit of $57.5 million is a huge number. Then, to say that basically the rest of Penn State Athletics were $57.3 million in the red is stunning.
The men's basketball program was the only other team that finished by posting a profit, and theirs was marginal. They were up just $172,178, so they barely scratched even.
Some of the main culprits were the baseball program that lost $3 million, men's and women's track and field were down nearly $3.5 million, and then women's basketball posted a $4.7 million deficit for the year.
The final line of this statement belongs to non-program-specific revenue and expenses, which sounds like a slush fund for all of the programs.
This chart just shows the utter importance of a competent and great football program. The football program is not only the lifeblood of the university, but it is the heartbeat for all of the athletic teams.
If there is no profitable football team, there is nothing else, and that's just the reality.
Last year's numbers are going to be a disaster for Penn State because of all the revenue that they lost when they started their losing streak and the cost that it took to fire James Franklin and his staff.
It is why Penn State made the move to move off of Franklin and put another person at the helm. They couldn't go through another lame duck season before making a move.
They needed to get this program back to being a winner for hundreds of reasons, but the reality in the profit and loss statement might stand above the rest.
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