Donations Up Despite Dismay

The Centre Daily Times notes that donations at Penn State are up 15% over the previous year, despite " a year filled with turmoil and alumni angst."

That’s the second-highest figure in that category in university history, Kirsch said. It is eclipsed only by $274.8 million in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, when alumnus Terry Pegula donated more than $100 million toward a hockey arena here and NCAA Division I hockey programs . 

Of the $237.8 million in cash for this past fiscal year, alumni contributed $87.6 million of the total, Kirsch said. That is up 19 percent from the previous year, when alumni gave $70.9 million. 

While the alumni donations are up, the number of alumni who donated is down almost 5 percent. The fiscal year that just ended saw 72,111 alumni give money to the university, but the year before, 75,593 alumni gave.

This has prompted some on the message boards in Nittany Nation to question the sanity of those who still give money when the Board of Trustees continues to push a "move on" agenda without any regard to truth and members continue to shirk their own responsibility in the whole scandal.

Oooh Rodney, you almost had it!

One poster writes:

I am proud to skew the data. I was a contributor, so I am in the count. I taped a penny to the annual fund card with a note that substantially more will follow when there is real governance reform.

I loathe this BoT. How could anyone donate?

Unfortunately, as angry as we are about how the BOT handled this whole mess, withholding donations is simply not a practical method for effecting change.  Loyalty to Penn State transcends the mistakes that may have been made (I qualify this as the trials of Schultz, Curley, etc. are still pending) and the mistakes that were made (e.g. the way Joe Paterno was sacrificed to the media) and not all donating alumni give a hoot about the football program.  The situation is eerily analogous to Catholics who continue to donate to their church despite horrendous allegations of abuse by individual priests.  An effort like this would have as much chance of success as organizing everyone to withhold paying taxes in protest of the government until Congress agreed to stop wasting our money.  The theory is good, but the real-world application is impossible.  But I digress.

First of all, ask yourself this . . . who is hurt by decreased donations?  Students.  If you think for one minute that Rodney Erickson will have his salary cut because of diminished donations then you live in a dream world.  You need to look no further than financial institutions which gave lucrative bonuses to CEO's as the government bailed those same institutions out of bankruptcy. 

I will be the first to admit that my contribution to Penn State is almost purely based on the personal benefit of retaining and purchasing football tickets.  I have no shame in admitting that the amount of money I would donate if I were not a football fan would be significantly less.  I have plenty of other worthy charities, schools, and organizations to support thank you very much.  And when I sit in Beaver Stadium and look around me, I am not alone in this.

What gain would there be for an empty stadium, assuming it were possible to convince every ticket holder not to renew?  Again, who is hurt?  Penn State still has their TV contract and Big Ten money.  The student-athletes would suffer.  Recruiting would suffer.  The coaches would suffer--maybe even prompting O'Brien to leave over the lack of support.  Are you willing to risk that to make a statement about the Board of Trustees????  The fans would suffer, denying themselves the stadium experience and perhaps risking their seats for future years with no restrictions and a team perhaps competing for a national title.  And if you think for one second that Rodney Erickson, John Surma, Karen Peetz or Keith Masser will suffer, then you are truly delusional and perhaps dangerous.

So what say you?  If you have donated previously, did you continue to donate?  Did you stop because of the leadership vacuum at Penn State?  If you withheld money, do you feel your voice has been heard?

NLC Annual Report

This document can be viewed at the NLC Website.

Basically, the Total Revenues for Penn State Athletics in 2008-9 were $95,978,243.  The Total Expenses for that same fiscal year were $87,862,549. 

Therefore, the school that feels the need to STEP up to higher seating fees, already has a surplus of $8.1 million dollars!  Isn't that special?!?

My editorial comment ran in the Altoona Mirror last Sunday.

A Facebook response came:

Hey Teri please tell Todd GREAT COLUMN!!!!! [We] went to St College for the festival I did not buy ONE THING that said Penn State!!! Greed Greed shame on them. SAD SAD years at GREEDY VALLEY not Happy anymore.

On the Mirror Website, one commenter (The WizardofOz) notes:

You hit the nail right on the head in your first paragraph...GREED...that has been there for years...just now you are personally facing it with the new STEP guidelines. Second...if they are going to raise prices, they have to do it while Joe is still around...and he's at the tail end of his tenure. Without Joe...they can't do this. Once hes gone...this would never fly. Typical Penn State....kill the Golden Goose. For those prices, Nit fans could go down to Pitt and sit in the Chancellors lap...maybe not a bad idea.

Sit on the Chancellors lap?  Now there's a disturbing thought.

NLC Donations Revisited

Since the leak of a major upheaval in donations for Penn State tickets, some more reports are coming out--not so much details, but explanations and excuses.

First, the reason. Ohio State' tickets cost more. From Cory Giger in the Altoona Mirror:

Many Penn State fans are frustrated or angry over reports about a substantial hike in season-ticket prices, but they also should know that for years it's been cheaper to attend games at Beaver Stadium than it has been at more than half the other schools in the Big Ten.

And when it comes to Ohio State season tickets, that's a whole other ballgame entirely. The Buckeyes charge fans a minimum donation of $1,500 simply for the right to be able to purchase season tickets.

Fans who want premium seats, meaning those near midfield, must pay a donation of $600 at Iowa, $500 at Michigan, Michigan State and Minnesota and $250 at Wisconsin.

So if those other schools all jump off a cliff, are we supposed to follow suit?

Of course, we trot out the same sorry excuse we always do . . . Penn State football must subsidize nearly the entire atheltic department.

JoePa added the athletic programs "don't get a nickel from the university for anything" and are "completely self-supporting."

"They got to do something [to raise money] or we got to cut back sports, and we don't want to do that," Paterno said.

You wily old man you. The early projections of this new system suggest that the University stands to make an additional 22-26 MILLION dollars in revenue by extorting its loyal fan base. Are athletic costs really going up that much? Are we paying Russ Rose $10 million a year now? Is the Fencing team using silver epees? That multimillion dollar icrease cannot be justified simply on the basis of rising costs.

Worse yet, Adam Rittenberg of ESPN suggests there isn't even a budget problem!

The most recent filing with the Department of Education shows Penn State athletics had nearly $96 million in revenues, and roughly $77 million in expenses last year. The expense figure does not include $11.3 million of debt service.

Remaining dollars are used for capital improvement projects or put in reserve, the department said in the government filing. Myford said things like fan requests to upgrade stadium concessions stands and restrooms would be the kinds of projects Penn State would look at in the future.

OMG! Can you imagine those restrooms!!! Even if you add in the debt service, PSU still had an EXTRA 7.3 MILLION DOLLARS based on those figures. And now we HAVE TO add 26 million dollars in income or we will be forced to cut sports? Give me a break!

What ever happened to the extra income from the Big Ten Network? More cable companies are picking it up. Shouldn't that offset athletic department costs?

Rittenbergs article also cites the "other reasons"--those besides good old fashioned GREED--for the change.

"The other key component, when it comes down to the primary reasons for doing it, it's finances, and it's fairness," Myford said. "We need to come up with a way that allows us to properly align and allocate our tickets with how someone is willing to support athletics on an annual basis, and currently we don't do that."

The Penn State plan would also shuffle the student section from its current location in one quadrant of the stadium from the 40 to the south end zone, to wrapping around the entire end zone, bookended at about the 10-yard lines. That would open more desirable seats to season-ticket holders.

Myford said possibly 800 more seats could be added to the student section, and that the hope is it would create a more intimidating atmosphere for opponents.

All right. I have no problem with allocating seats based on level of financial commitment. I can understand where someone who is only donating $100 per year should not get 50-yard line seats over someone who is donating thousands. So here is the fair solution: Every ten years, just like the census, reallocate seats based on the NLC point system. Those who give more get more points and can populate the prime seats. For example, you currently need something like 40-50 points just to get off the waiting list and gets seats in the upper level decks. Points are used to distribute away game tickets and bowl games. Simply figure out how many people want prime seats and calculate the point level--i.e. you need 250 points to get 50 yard line seats, etc. And if you don't continue to donate at that level, at the next "census" you will likely lose your seats.

This way, you use the system that has already been in place for decades. And instead of marking the price up on donations 500%, you can slowly escalate the levels of giving to make it affordable for the fan base.

Here's another thought. I get 12 tickets but I can only get one freaking parking place. How many vehicles do you own that can seat 12? How about allowing me to buy an extra spot for every six seats so my whole tailgate party can park together?

For that matter, how about actually reserving the reserved spot so that fans that donate more money have a guaranteed place to park in bad weather? What a concept there!

Do we really want to add 800 student seats when for most games those seats weren't filled--for whatever reason.

Somebody who is not blinded by the glint of gold and the promise of riches needs to look at this program very carefully before they inadvertently destroy the fan base at Penn State.

Don't forget: Nominate Todd A. Sponsler for Trustee the next time you get your Alumni ballots.

Oh yeah . . . we have a game this afternoon. GO STATE! BEAT SPARTANS!

How Much Is Enough?

I want to preface this entry by stating that I am a firm believer in the free-market system of capitalism. But sometimes capitalism can be a pain in the wallet.

Penn State football, for better or worse, is a business--a very big and lucrative businesss, one which not only pays for itself, but a host of minor businesses (like Field Hockey, Fencing and Volleyball.) Think McDonalds also underwriting hot dog vendors in New York City.

PSU has a product that is in high demand, and they control the cost of that product. They're not too concerned with the quality of said product, but since consumers are still filling the stadium up for Eastern Illinois and losses to OSU and Iowa, who cares?

As you may have heard already, the University is poised to unveil a new policy for the sale of tickets to Penn State football games. Do you have your checkbooks ready?

From Cory Giger in the Altoona Mirror:

It's about to get a lot more expensive for fans to ensure themselves of keeping premium seats at Penn State home football games.

* Season-ticket holders between the 40-yard lines will be charged $600 per seat, in addition to their required Nittany Lion Club donations (which are a minimum of $100 per seat).

* Fans from the goal lines to the 40-yard lines will be charged an additional $400 per seat.

* Fans around the end zones will be charged an additional $100 per seat.

Any fans who elect not to pay the additional charges might have their seats relocated. The Harrisburg newspaper reported that section ED - at the 30-yard line behind the PSU bench - would no longer be reserved for students and would take the relocated fans.

The actual details of this plan will supposedly be mailed to season ticket holders sometime after the regular season, and will not apply to 2010.

But it is not clear exactly how this will impact fans.

"There will be many season-ticket holders who aren't impacted at all by this," said Greg Myford, Penn State associate athletic director for business relations and communications.

Yeah . . . riiiight. How is that even possible?

What is not clear is whether this system will supplant the previous system of tiered levels of giving, or whether it will be used in place of that system. The above quote noted that these costs will be in addition to current levels, but even that doesn't clear the situation completely.

Consider the fan who currently has six tickets in the endzone. Under the current system, that fan would need to donate a minimum of $800 to "qualify" for 6 tickets. According to this new system, that fan would need to donate $600--$100 for each seat per year. But does that fan still need to donate $800 as they did before? I can't imagine Penn State lowering the fee for those seats, so I assume this fan will neeed to pay $1,400 under the new system. If so, this will impact everyone. Even the student section is being restructured.

And what if that fan also previously had a numbered reserve spot, meaning a minimum donation of $2,200. Is this sap now expected to donate $2,800, or will the $100 per seat already be covered by the extra donation he/she makes for the parking privilege?

What I foresee happening is that the bulk of prime seats will shift to wealthy patrons and companies that can afford this $600 per seat luxury tax by PSU. For games like Eastern Illinois, I think you will start to see more empty seats midfield, just as we saw more empty student seats after the University tampered with how students sold and resold tickets. It has been my experience that wealthier fans are not die hard fans. Like Christians that may donate a lot to church but show up only on Easter and Christmas, they donate to Penn State and show up for Alabama and Ohio State.

One fan was recently interviewed in the Altoona Mirror for his tailgate:

John Horon still makes the drive from Philipsburg to State College for Penn State football games, arriving about three hours before kickoff and staying about three hours after the game ends.

But when the game starts, Horon stays put in his parking spot in the shadows of Beaver Stadium.

Fed up with Penn State's regulations, Horon stopped going inside about five years ago.

"You can't drink inside, and you can't come out at halftime," Horon said. "That's the biggest thing. Why should I go in there and pay for a ticket for half a game? I want to come out, use the tailgate. That's what we always used to do, then we'd come back in. Now you can't do that, so there's no sense."

I can't say I blame him. Over the years, PSU has made a series of well-meaning but perhaps misguided decisions that have adversely affected the tailgate atmosphere. It started with no kegs. In and of itself, that is reasonable. They don't want a lot of drunk unruly people wandering around causing trouble. And the reality is that most people wouldn't bring a keg to the game anyway, so you're not impacting the total number of fans much.

But then the issue of not allowing re-entry has always baffled me? What is so hard about a hand stamp and a ticket for reentry? Is it just not wanting to employ people to do that? Is it because they went out for a drink? Didn't you just allow them in the game at the beginning without a breathalyzer? I don't buy the security aspect. Simply don't allow bags and such and search like you would anyone entering the game, whether it is at the beginning or the midway point.

And then they prohibited tailgating while the game is being played. WTF? Who came up with that gem?

This year they added no bottles in the grass lots.

What started out as a noble intention of curbing excessive drinking by a relatively few fans has now trickled down to rules that adversely impact more than just a few fans.

Could it be the University is looking to make money without actually having to make fans happy? Or even deal with them?

With ever increasing access to televised games, a struggling economy, and now huge increases, I think there will be a shift of people out of the stadium--at least people that had regularly attended before when it was more affordable.

But PSU doesn't care about actual bodies, hence the inflated attendance figures based on tickets sold. Fewer fans means less mess and clean-up--more money saved.

Neil Rudel responded critically to this new policy.

And you thought the health-care costs in this country are out of control.

In the past 10 years, it has launched skyboxes and club seats at Beaver Stadium, at premium prices, but that apparently is not enough, and the university has now put Joe Lunchbucket in its cross hairs.

At what point does Penn State consider reducing a handful of sports to the club level?

The answer, obviously, is not yet.

Not if it can shake enough of you to double your football bill and, for example, change it from $2,160 for four seats on the 40 - at $55 per seat times eight home games plus the $400 for the "right" to watch these special teams - to $4,160.

Especially during these financially challenging times, Penn State should be partnering with the Nittany Nation and sharing the burden, not taxing it.

Compounding the matter is people paying an average of upwards of $125 per ticket will rightfully expect the team to score an offensive touchdown against Ohio State without needing replay, which in turn will heighten pressure on the players.

You don't charge this much and have fans say "aw, shucks," when Iowa blocks a punt.

I have already spoken to several long-time fans who have confided in me that this is the last straw if it is true and they will not be renewing their tickets. And while there may be rejoicing from those on the waiting list, keep this in mind: you will have to pay these same fees as well. I strongly suspect those on the waiting list are people who are not wealthy enough to donate enough money to get off the waiting list. I highly doubt this new structure will be budget-friendly for them.

As I said at the outset, I'm a fan of capitalism. If Penn State can pull this off, more power to them. But it sounds like a decidely un-Penn State concept when you consider that Paterno has been woefully underpaid by the University compared to his peers for years, and has actually donated back a lot of his success. Paterno rewards loyalty to a fault, whether it be his senior players or his staff. But for the average fan that has enjoyed seats for many years, through good times and bad, that will change now in the simple interest of money. Sometimes good business sense means making your customers happy rather than alienating them.

And do we fans have any recourse? I guess you can pony up the extra expense, cut back the number of tickets you buy, or get out altogether and invest in a good HD TV and cable/satellite system.

Or, we can speak out. I'm sure the University expects a response--from the article:

The university is aware this new plan will not go over well with many fans and is prepared for a public backlash.

"We'd be naive to think that any time that something is introduced that addresses money" that fans won't be upset, Myford said.

I think to a large extent, the average fan has been disenfranchised. Random complaints are ineffective, and it is next to impossible to coordinate a boycott that would be effective. After all, who is going to risk their Alabama tickets to make a statement.

But maybe there is another way. I'm not sure how much influence the Board of Trustees has in the athletic department, but I suggest that the Alumni--and football fans in particular--need to make themselves known. When elections for trustees come around, nominate me--Todd A. Sponsler--for trustee. I will make sure the voice of Nittany Nation is heard. I'll let them know what we think of their "change." If you are behind me, let me know. Spread the word. We can make ourselves heard!