Penn State’s athletic department made just over $5.6 million in profit over the most recent fiscal year, according to its annual financial report that was released this month. The athletic department spent $215.1 million from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, and received $220.7 in total overall revenue, an increase of $18.5 from the previous year.
Both revenues and expenses were all-time highs for the department.
In the second full year under athletic director Pat Kraft, the school’s football program was responsible for over half of the athletic department’s total operating revenue, earning $113.1 million.
Football ticket sales were $44.5 million, an increase of $2.6 million, and program, novelty, parking and concession sales were $12.3 million, a $2.7 million increase, across a season that included home games against West Virginia and ranked opponents Iowa and Michigan.
The Nittany Lions’ 24-15 loss against Michigan on Nov. 11 currently resides as the third-most attended game in Beaver Stadium, and the 31-0 win over the Hawkeyes on Sept. 23 is fourth on that list. The primetime, season-opening 38-15 victory against West Virginia also surpassed 110,000 attendees, and ranks seventh-most in Beaver Stadium history.
A bulk of the athletic department’s expenses were also allocated to the football program, which spent $64.5 million in the 2023-24 fiscal year.
James Franklin and his support staff were responsible for $28 million, a $4 million increase from the previous fiscal year. That could be due, in part, to the lucrative contract the Nittany Lions’ gave new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki and the $700,000 owed to Kansas to buy him out.
Kotelnicki replaced Mike Yurcich, who was fired as Penn State’s offensive coordinator in November 2023. Penn State’s football program spent $905,480 on severance payments, and it’s likely that most, if not all, of that was given to Yurcich.
That fiscal year also marked the first in the Big Ten’s new media rights agreement with Fox, CBS and NBC. However, the athletic department reported $42.1 million in media rights, up just $2 million from the previous year.
But there’s likely to be a significant increase in media rights revenue in the next financial report when it includes a full payout by CBS, which broadcasted just seven Big Ten football games in 2023. The deal, which went into full effect this past summer with the arrival of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, is expected to pay each team in the conference up to $100 million.
Aside from football, men’s basketball, in its first season under head coach Mike Rhoades, was the only other program in the black for the year. It had a a net profit of $576,000, a $190,000 increase over the prior year, as it saw both revenues and expenditures decline. The team had $11.85 million in revenues, a $730,000 decrease from a year earlier, and $11.27 million in expenses, a decrease of $923,000.
As football and men’s basketball’s profits increased year over year, women’s basketball and all other sports saw a decline. Penn State’s women’s basketball program earned $635,831, a decrease of $471,429 from the previous year. This appears to be attributed to a $377,692 cut in athletics restricted endowment and investments income and other operating revenue.
The full financial report can be found here.
