Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1545007
4 2 J U N E / J U L Y 2 0 2 6 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M E D I T O R I A L MATT HERB MATT.HERB@ON3.COM VARSITY VIEWS T he identity of Penn State's 2026 White Out opponent hadn't been determined at the time this edition of BWI went to press. The odds-on favorite was USC, which is set to visit Beaver Stadium on Oct. 10. It's easily the best home game on Penn State's schedule, with the Trojans making their first visit to State College since 1994 when they fell to the hosts, 38-14. But even though that's the game everyone wants to see receive the prime-time spot- light treatment, there were at least two other possibilities. Wisconsin is coming on Sept. 26 and Minnesota on Nov. 14. While neither of those opponents would elicit the same excitement as USC, which has been showing up in the top 20 of most post-spring media polls, they both could pose a threat to a Penn State team about which little is known. The Nittany Lions will also welcome Purdue on Oct. 31 and Rutgers on Nov. 21, but choosing either of those matchups as a White Out would be a real buzzkill after a 2025 sea- son in which they combined to go 7-17. It's an article of faith among Penn State fans that TV has damaged the White Out, and you can understand why people might feel that way. TV has damaged plenty of things over the years, includ- ing the Big Ten if you subscribe to the idea that geographic proximity was what made conferences great in the first place. In recent years, the Lions have had to arrange their biggest home game around the scheduling imperatives of the various networks that hold the conference's me- dia rights. That's how Minnesota ended up being a White Out opponent in 2022 and Washington in 2024. The Nittany Lions played Ohio State at home both years, but those games kicked off at noon because that's what FOX demanded. It might seem unfortunate that Penn State has had to re- linquish so much control over one of the biggest events on its calendar, a three-hour adrenalin rush that showcases the football program in the most flattering light possible. But like many things in life, there's a tradeoff. The benefit of letting the networks dictate an ever-larger proportion of the Big Ten's scheduling decisions was evi- dent in recent reporting by ESPN and The Athletic. Per those sources, Penn State received $88.9 million for the 2024- 25 athletic year as part of the Big Ten's revenue-sharing plan. Eighty-eight point nine million. Say it slowly and let it sink in. That amounts to an unprecedented windfall for the ath- letics department. It dwarfed the $25.7 payout Penn State received just 12 years earlier and even the $63.2 million it got from the league in 2023-24, according to financial data compiled by Mike Poor- man of StateCollege.com. Back in the 1980s when Joe Paterno and Jim Tarman were spearheading Penn State's efforts to join a conference, they could surely never have imagined how lucrative Big Ten membership would end up being. They mostly just wanted a more stable revenue stream after decades spent having to manage around the ups and downs of football independence. Suffice it to say, $88.9 million will buy a lot of stability. Or will it? Another number that bears mentioning is much smaller: $223,679. That was Penn State's surplus during the 2024-25 athletics year. PSU earned $254.87 million and spent $254.64 mil- lion. For all the money that's coming in, nearly as much is going out. Running a major college athletics de- partment, especially one with 31 varsity teams, is getting more expensive by the day. The costs that schools have been paying all along — coaching and admin- istrative salaries, scholarships, facilities, travel, insurance — have continued to climb, and lately they've been joined by entirely new categories of spending, in- cluding revenue sharing. Colleges could directly pay their athletes $20.5 million during the 2025-26 school year. That's something else Paterno likely never could have envisioned. He had long been an advocate of stipends for athletes, but his idea was that they should have enough money to pay for bus fare if they needed to go home for a weekend or wanted to take their girl- friend out for a nice dinner. It's darkly amusing to imagine what he would have made of a world in which some athletes make vastly more than their professors. But that's the world of 2026. And the world of 2027 and beyond is going to be even more expensive. If the price of do- ing business is that the USC game kicks off at noon, Penn State is going to pay it. What choice does it have? ■ Penn State's Big Payday Requires Some Compromises Penn State drew 111,015 fans for its prime-time clash with Oregon last season, but some of its recent White Out matchups have left fans grumbling. PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/ PENN STATE ATHLETICS