March 7, 2018
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.- Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics recently filed its 2016-17 NCAA Annual Financial Report, which showed continued advancement in its efforts to remain a self-supporting unit, while providing a student-athlete experience that is unsurpassed.
Revenues in FY 2017 continued to trend upward. Among the areas resulting in higher revenues were Big Ten Conference television and bowl distributions, and increases in licensing-related revenues and corporate partner compensation (due to the strength of the Penn State brand). Penn State also saw increased philanthropy among Nittany Lion Club members and other donors.
The 2016-17 fiscal year also saw an increase in expenses, including additional grant-in-aid expenses relating to the providing of cost of attendance to student-athletes during the summer academic sessions, enhanced student-athlete meals and nutrition stations, as well as coaching, administrative and support staff compensation. Increased expenses also occurred due to the costs associated with home game operations, including increased security measures and staffing, and facility enhancements.
Additional expenses included the debt service payments on the University's short-term $30 million loan to ICA earlier this decade, in addition to increased costs in the daily operations for Penn State's nationally competitive 31-sport program, which has won eight NCAA Championships and 34 Big Ten titles since the 2012 fall semester.
During fiscal 2017, Penn State Athletics generated $144,017,055 in net revenues against $138,724,055 in total expenses to finish the year with a positive balance of approximately $5.3 million.
"Penn State Athletics continues to be a strong, self-supporting unit, boosted by new and increasing revenue streams during fiscal 2017, while remaining attentive to rising expenses in many areas," said Sandy Barbour, Director of Athletics. "During the past year, we've continued to see strong and encouraging indicators, including ticketing, sponsorships and licensing, and additional revenue in other areas, that have brought us closer to a sense of normalcy, in conjunction with our efforts to closely manage expenses.
"We remain vigilant in our expense management, while creating conditions for success for our students and achieving comprehensive excellence throughout ICA," Barbour added.
Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics does not receive any funding from The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or its taxpayers, nor any student fees or financial support directly allocated by central administration. Penn State is among a group of 13 NCAA Division I athletic departments that reports to be self-supporting, according to USA Today's 2015-16 College Athletics Finance Report.
Penn State fields one of the nation's most comprehensive and successful athletic programs, sponsoring 31 intercollegiate varsity programs (16 men's and 15 women's), tied for the fourth-highest sport total among Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institutions, that are fully funded at the NCAA maximum scholarship levels.
Penn State's 800 student-athletes earned a school record-tying Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 90 percent in the 2017 NCAA Graduation Rate Report, continuing a rate well above their peers nationwide. During the 2017 fall semester, school records were re-written when 26 teams and a total of 520 student-athletes earned at least a 3.0 grade-point average. The Nittany Lions rank No. 4 among all Division I schools with 200 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans all-time, with seven honorees since December 2016.
The Nittany Lions' 49 NCAA Championships all-time (77 national championships overall) rank No. 5 among all NCAA Division I programs and are the highest total of any college or university east of the Mississippi River. Penn State's 30 NCAA titles since 1992-93 leads all Big Ten Conference institutions. The Nittany Lions have won 107 Big Ten Championships since capturing their first crown in 1992-93, including seven in 2016-17, and three thus far in 2017-18. Penn State is one of just nine institutions nationally to finish in the Top 25 of the Learfield Directors' Cup in all 24 years of the program's existence, earning four Top 10 finishes in the past five years.