Taking A Look At Penn State Athletics’ Latest Financial Statements
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It’s that time of the year, folks.
Penn State Athletics released its FY 2024 financial statement to the NCAA, detailing the department’s revenues and expenditures for the last fiscal year.
Since the report is 90 pages long, we put together an overview of the latest report.
Before diving in, it’s important to note that the report covers the 2024 fiscal year which began on July 1, 2023, and ended on June 30, 2024. Because of the lag, numbers from the 2024 football season won’t be reflected. Instead, they’ll cover the 2023 season with notable home games against West Virginia, Iowa, and Michigan.
Penn State Athletics reported $220.7 million in operating revenue and $215.1 million in expenses, for a net profit of $5.6 million. Both metrics were all-time highs for the department, and revenues grew 9.18% from the previous year while expenses grew 6.45%.
Penn State’s largest revenue source was ticket sales, which brought in $50.6 million for an increase of $2.7 million year over year. Football accounted for 88%, or $44.5 million, of ticket sales, followed by men’s hockey and men’s basketball with $2.2 and $1.8 million, respectively.
For women’s athletics, women’s basketball ranked first with $209,997 in ticket sales while women’s volleyball earned the second-most in ticket revenue with $205,435.
Athletics reported $37 million in contributions to the university. The payments are described as “amounts received from individuals, corporations, associations, foundations, clubs, or other organizations designated for the operations of the athletics program,” and include anything above face value paid for tickets.
Football raked in $4.3 million in contributions followed by men’s lacrosse, with $928,372. On the women’s side, field hockey and women’s ice hockey earned the most in contributions with $793,426 and $786,730, respectively.
Rounding out Penn State’s major revenue sources is the media rights deal. Athletics received $35.8 million from football’s rights deal and earned $6.3 million for a men’s basketball deal for a total of $42.1 million. No women’s teams earned revenue from media rights deals, according to the report.
NCAA distributions and conference distributions totaled $10.2 million on the balance sheet while the Nittany Lions brought in $7.9 million in “conference distributions of football bowl generated revenue.”
The largest expense on the report is coaching salaries, benefits, and bonuses. Penn State paid $42.4 million to its coaches during FY 2024, an increase of $3.8 million from last year’s report.
The university also paid out $38.3 million for support staff and administrative compensation, benefits, and bonuses, which was a decrease of nearly $1 million from the last report. Football accounted for $7.2 million of the support staff compensation while men’s basketball was next with $1.3 million.
Athletic aid was also a large portion of the university’s expenditures, totaling $24.1 million. This year’s number was a $700,000 increase from last year, with $6.2 million going to the football team alone.
Team travel cost the university $12 million in FY 2024 while it spent $6 million on sports equipment, uniforms, and supplies.
While football’s overall revenue grew from $109.6 million last year to $113.2 million this year, revenues from other sports fell. Men’s basketball fell from $12.6 to $11.9 million and women’s basketball fell from $1.1 million to $635,831. All other sports are grouped into one category, but the total revenue still fell from $24.7 million to $19.6 million.
Finance bros who want to crunch their own numbers can find the full report here.
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