Penn State scandal, JoePa and the football/college town complex

1. I was basing that on the other poster saying it was $15M.
2. I wanna see how she got those revenue/expense numbers. They don't pass the smell test. Making a million in profit per game is pretty obscene, but believable. Making about $4M in profit per game? I don't buy it.

 

SMU was tough in the early eighties. Of course they compenstated their athletes better than other schools.

 

It's funny to me how much "SMU hasn't recovered" has gotten to be CW. No, it HAS recovered. People are just being clueless as to what SMU football can realistically be. And what it was before the Pony Express. If you believe Wikipedia, SMU went to fewer bowl games in the 70s than Wake Forest.

There's a point to this. I'm not just being pedantic. It's relevant to Penn State and what sanctions could fairly be given to the school. I would also point out that it was a completely different era, but Kentucky basketball got the death penalty in, I think, the early 50s. Hasn't stopped Kentucky basketball from having THE most impressive fanbase in the country, and arguably the greatest program of all time. (Probably neck and neck with UNC at this point.)

After this has all passed, Penn State will still have a 100,000 seat stadium, and be the primary football school in one of the top football states in the nation. There's a CHANCE that Pitt will take advantage of this and permanently surpass Penn State as a destination for Pennsylvania football talent, just like the Black Sox scandal caused the Cubs to permanently pass the White Sox as the bigger team in Chicago. But there's a bigger chance it won't.

The one thing I think we all need to keep in mind is that this is the single biggest scandal in the history of American sports, and it has hit one of the handful of most prominent football programs in the country. Those are two pretty massive variables that make predictions incredibly difficult.

 

I'm 35. I've followed college football only since my early 20s. I didn't think they had recovered to the place from which they fell - at least from the legends I've heard and read about SMU football.

 

They have. They went to zero bowl games in the 50s, 3 or 4 in the 60s, and none in the 70s. There were alot fewer bowl games back then, but still...they're a small private school doing what small private schools do in football. Try to be better than Duke.

 

I think we are arguing the same point. It was Sandusky's demented behavior that caused the boys to be abused. It was the behaviour of Paterno et al who allowed the boys after 1998 to be abused. To me they're just as culpable. They covered it up to protect their cash cow.

Does it matter what the Professor has...he's raping boys. Does Paterno cover it up for the Calculus Professor?

You should have been clearer when you made this statement.

 

The only thing I'll point out here is that university donations largely come with strings attached. People don't give to PSU. They give to the particular program from which they earned a degree; to a cancer research center; for student scholarships; or, of course, to support athletics. Point being, the university can't just shift development funds around willy-nilly to pay this fine. Plus, the negative effect on future fundraising will be substantial.

 

Football is not hopeless for private schools: Miami, Notre Dame, Stanford, Syracuse, Boston College, etc.

Granted that list is not the same as: Alabama, USC, Texas, Michigan, Florida, etc.

 

It is more complicated than that. Miami football, for example, was also terrible for a long period. What happened to SMU had long ranging effects, because when the SWC broke up SMU was one of the teams left out in the cold. In contrast, Miami used its strong football program to gain better conference affiliations, first with the Big East and then with the ACC. If we see further conference musical chairs, one danger to Penn State is that the Big Ten could decide that a weakened Penn State program isn't worth having around and decide to replace them. Penn State could find itself out of the Big Ten with no other power conferences interested in adding it as a member.

 

On my way home, I was listening to the news, and the sports reporter was speaking with someone who covers the Penn State football team for Penn State's blog. He said that the most damaging thing isn't the money or the scholarships, but the loss of bowl games. He said that he believes that the positions that would be lost by scholarships could be replaced with walk-ons, and the money isn't really an issue. The loss of bowl games means that players would only play in the regular season with no chance at going to a bowl. He said that the consensus from a lot of people is that will be the most damaging.

For me, this seems like it would be the least of their worries. Bowl games are meaningless exhibitions. You mean to tell me that a player would snub PSU because he can't play in the Outback Bowl? Doesn't really make sense to me.

 

Think about it this way: You are an NFL team that plays in its own stadium. The NFL team owns the stadium, and the land surrounding it. You have daily expenses like keeping the lights on, the water flowing, and other things of that sort. However, one expense you never have to pay is the salary towards players. That's what Penn State is: An NFL team with NFL prices and a better than NFL stadium without having to pay a dime to the players. If the NFL could swing that, each team would be making profits of a hundred million dollars.

 

I still don't see how that could be the most damaging, though. I get that even if PSU goes 12-0 they won't play for anything, but I'm sure that those wins wouldn't be meaningless, either. They can still be champions of the leaders or legends or whatever division. Also, the players at PSU will still get noticed by NFL scouts. The program may have a rep, but the players don't. I would think playing for PSU would still be a big thing for some players, even if they don't go to a bowl game.

 

The NFL TV contract is about $3 billion a year. That comes out to about $94 million per team. The Big Ten TV deal distributes about $24 million a year to each school.

 

Yep. The word "small" in my post was just as important as the word "private."