Power, Plateau, and Priorities: A Management Consultant's Critique of Penn State Athletics

​Penn State University is an undisputed powerhouse in collegiate athletics, especially in football. With a massive national fanbase, a storied history, and a revenue machine that consistently delivers, it ranks among the elite institutions of the Big Ten. But scratch beneath the surface, and the picture becomes more complicated.

​While football thrives, both men's and women's basketball have underachieved for decades. Meanwhile, its extensive investments in health and wellness, though admirable, raise questions about how deeply they're integrated into athletic leadership and accountability.

From a management consultant's viewpoint, Penn State is a case study in selective ambition. The athletic department has demonstrated excellence when it chooses to, but often allows that success to concentrate too narrowly. With the landscape of college sports shifting rapidly through NIL, conference realignment, and wellness culture, Penn State's most significant threat may not be competition; it may be complacency.

Elite Resources, But Are They Being Leveraged?

Penn State's athletic revenue ranks in the upper echelon of the NCAA. In FY2023–24, the department reported $220.7 million in revenue, with a $5.6 million surplus. That includes over $56 million from football games, $42 million from media rights, and more than $37 million in donations. These figures position the school among national leaders, alongside programs such as Ohio State, Michigan, and Alabama.
But resource abundance is not, in itself, a performance metric. The key question is how effectively those resources are translated into sustainable, broad-based success.

From a strategic standpoint, Penn State has long followed a "hub and spoke" model, with football at the hub and other sports as its appendages. While this has ensured gridiron strength, it has starved other programs, particularly basketball, of the attention, consistency, and expectation levels required for long-term success.

Football: Stable, Successful—and Stalled?

Under James Franklin, Penn State football has become a model of consistent top-15 performance. The 2023 season saw another 10–3 finish and a New Year's Six bowl appearance. Few programs can match Penn State's combination of tradition, attendance, and recruiting pipelines.

Yet cracks are beginning to show. The team continues to falter against top-tier competition, most notably Ohio State and Michigan. Franklin's record in high-stakes matchups remains underwhelming, and critics argue that the program has reached a performance plateau.

Franklin has adopted a momentum-based strategy, prioritizing recruiting depth, positional stability, and staff continuity over tactical innovation. That approach has maintained a strong floor, but it has not raised the ceiling. A $700 million renovation to Beaver Stadium, while symbolizing a commitment to football, risks reinforcing an outdated model if not paired with parallel investments in coaching innovation, NIL readiness, and athlete development systems.

Health and Wellness: Strong Foundations, Weak Integration

Penn State has constructed one of the country's most robust athletic wellness programs. With a clinical and performance staff that includes dietitians, mental health professionals, orthopedic specialists, and recovery experts, the infrastructure is sound. Staff members like Katy Pohland and Tori Lesko have developed well-regarded systems for athlete support, and partnerships with Penn State Health provide access to cutting-edge sports medicine and orthopedic care.

However, the critical consultant's question remains: how deeply are these services integrated into the actual functioning of athletic teams? Are head coaches evaluated on athlete health outcomes? Do support professionals have the authority to influence training regimens or flag concerns independently?

Facilities and professionals alone do not guarantee results. Without structural integration—where wellness is treated as a core leadership function rather than an auxiliary service—the program risks being branded as superficial. Penn State should prioritize making wellness central to its athletic culture by conducting regular audits of outcomes, linking wellness metrics to coaching evaluations, and ensuring that athlete voices are integral to system design.

Basketball: A Persistent Blind Spot

Penn State's investment in basketball, relative to its peers, has produced lackluster returns. The men's basketball team finished 16–15 in the 2024–25 season, posting a 6–14 conference record. Despite a brief surge into the NCAA Tournament in 2023, the program has struggled for consistency, relevance, and high-level recruiting. In a Big Ten flush with basketball talent and brand equity, Penn State remains an afterthought.

The situation is worse on the women's side. After a promising 22–13 season in 2023–24, the team plummeted to 10–19 overall and 1–17 in Big Ten play this past year, finishing dead last in the conference. That kind of regression suggests not just a bad year, but systemic underinvestment in coaching, scouting, and development infrastructure.

Achieving basketball success in the Big Ten is possible, even for football-first schools. Iowa and Michigan have shown that dual-sport excellence is feasible with exemplary leadership. For Penn State, the first step must be to raise internal expectations. Mediocrity in basketball has been normalized for too long.

Budget Allocation: Lopsided Priorities

Penn State's athletic department is well-funded, but that funding is unevenly distributed. Football absorbs more than half of the department's total resources. Men's basketball is the only other sport that generates profit. Wrestling and Olympic sports operate at a deficit, despite competitive success.

More concerning is the lack of robust NIL infrastructure across non-football sports. While collectives exist, they remain behind the curve compared to other Big Ten institutions. This hurts both basketball and the Olympic programs, particularly in retaining athletes and attracting high-end transfers.

A consultant would recommend rebalancing the budget, not by reducing funding for football, but by earmarking a strategic portion of new donor funds and media revenue for turnaround efforts in basketball and women's athletics. A 5–10% realignment could yield exponential cultural and competitive returns.

Strategic Recommendations

1. Tie Coaching Evaluations to Wellness Metrics: Include injury prevention, mental health outcomes, and team morale in performance reviews.
2. Revive Basketball with Dedicated Resources: Launch a "Reclaim the Court" initiative with clear goals, benchmarks, and targeted NIL investment.
3. Build NIL Infrastructure Across Sports: Expand collectives and booster engagement beyond football, offering competitive packages for basketball and Olympic athletes.
4. Publicly Reaffirm Multi-Sport Commitment: Use messaging and branding to align the department's goals with broad-based excellence, not just football prestige.
5. Audit Beaver Stadium Impact: Ensure that the massive capital outlay enhances, not cannibalizes, departmental breadth.

Final Assessment: Power Squandered?

Penn State has everything an athletic department could want: fan loyalty, financial firepower, national recognition, and institutional credibility. Yet it continues to operate with a selective focus, pouring resources and attention into football while tolerating stagnation elsewhere.

From a consultant's perspective, this is not a resource problem—it's a leadership choice. If Penn State wants to be a true standard-bearer in the Big Ten and beyond, it must insist on performance at every level, not just on Saturdays in the fall.

Otherwise, it risks becoming a cautionary tale: the program that had everything, but chose to coast.