Pandemic costing Penn State sports less than expected, athletic director says

Despite the loss of revenue for Penn State athletics due to the coronavirus pandemic, athletic director Sandy Barbour said that the university will not cut any of its athletic programs.

“That’s not something I’m interested in. It’s not something I’m looking at,” Barbour said Tuesday afternoon, speaking to reporters for the first time since August. “We’ve got a very proud tradition and legacy of a large, robust program. That’s not something that we’re looking at.”

After several Nittany Lion athletic teams had to prematurely end their seasons or put workouts on pause last March and when it was determined that there would be no fans at football games, Barbour anticipated the net loss for the department could be around $90 million. But Barbour said because of “our community and our fans” and both “individual and organizational sacrifices,” that number has been limited to about $20-25 million dollars.

The eighth-year Penn State athletic director credited fans who opted to roll their football season tickets over to the 2021 season and donors and others who donated to the department’s covid-19 relief campaigns.

“We’ve done everything we can to make sure that we get access to as much of our revenues as we can,” Barbour said.

The sacrifices those within Penn State athletics have made range from employees taking pay cuts, “a small number” of people going on furlough and the department putting holds on filling open positions.

All together, it’s helped the department reduce expenses by “somewhere north of 25 million dollars.”

“So, you add all that up,” Barbour said. “You use our reserves, which we were fortunate to have … and I think our number’s gonna come in somewhere between 20 and 25 million (of net loss). That’s a big advancement from looking at 90 to 100 million. It still exacts some pain, but not what 90 million would.”

Though no athletic programs will be cut, the financial impact of the virus is still affecting the growth of Penn State athletics in other ways.

While some of the Nittany Lions’ facilities projects have been successfully funded by philanthropy in the past, lacrosse’s Panzer Stadium and football’s Lasch Building included, others have not yet been fully funded by donations.

Barbour said the department would dip into its “reserve fund” under normal circumstances for those types of projects, but it won’t be able to in the immediate future because of that fund now being used to help mitigate the department’s overall financial loss.

“We’ve been looking at, ‘OK, how do we use some of our reserve funds to maybe help or plug a gap to move a project along,’” Barbour said. “And that’s probably where the pandemic and the financial realities will cause us to take a step back.”

Even with the challenges to Penn State’s ability to upgrade or expand its facilities, Barbour is “enthusiastic about this spring.” There are 30 programs either competing or holding “on-field” practices right now, she said, and that number will soon bump up to 31 as football gets started with spring ball.

“I’ve had the opportunity to be out and be at some of our events here these last couple of weeks. Some of the sports that have just gotten up and started,” Barbour said. “There’s nothing better than seeing those student-athletes finally have the opportunity to put on a uniform, compete against somebody else. And the smiles on their faces and kinda the joy in their voices is really what this is all about.”

Barbour also said Penn State plans to have a new men’s basketball coach in place as soon as the season ends.

“In terms of vetting candidates and developing our list and kind of getting ahead of the game, we’ve been doing that,” Barbour said. “So the plan would be to name a head coach immediately following the conclusion of our Penn State men’s basketball season.”

The position has been open since October when former head coach Pat Chambers resigned following an internal investigation by the athletic department. Since then, former assistant Jim Ferry has been the team’s interim head coach and has led the program to a 5-6 record overall and a 2-4 record in the Big Ten.

Barbour was complimentary of the job Ferry has done in just over three months in the role and said he’s had a hands-on audition.

“My evaluation of Coach Ferry has really been outstanding,” Barbour said. “He stepped into a difficult situation. The Big Ten is an absolute beast. … In terms of managing the great young men in our program, he gets stellar grades. Certainly we had a little bit of a losing streak there, but you’ve got to give the guys and you’ve got to give Jim a lot of credit for keeping the faith, keeping the confidence. We’ve got two (conference) wins under our belt and certainly look to see what we can continue to do.”

While he’s had the chance to prove his worth on the job — and according to Barbour has stated his interest in taking it — the athletic director said she won’t make a decision on his candidacy until the season is over and will look for several key attributes in the next head coach.

“In terms of metrics, there certainly are some on-court metrics in terms of how teams play and style and those kinds of things,” Barbour said. “And I’m certainly relying on experts around some of that. My biggest contribution, if you will, is really looking at fit. Fit for Penn State, fit for our students, our expectations for coaches around being educators and how they work with and help our students develop and grow. In the end we’ll put all that together and figure out who the best candidate is.”

Ferry and his team will next take the court Wednesday night when they travel to Columbus to take on No. 15 Ohio State in a conference matchup.