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All about the money

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guinpen:
Per Dana Balash

YSU athletics will pocket more than $3 million in football "money games" through 2027
The biggest payday was this season at Michigan State & YSU received $750,000.

Since 2005 the Youngstown State football team has been playing the so called "money games" against Power Five schools and received millions of dollars for the athletic department and the majority of time a loss.

Since their first "money game" at Pittsburgh, September 24, 2005  the Penguins have played 15 payday games and have only one win, 31-17 against the Panthers on September 1, 2012.

"Our community stuck by us and this win was for our community," said then head coach Eric Wolford following that game.

Now, these games are an every year occurrence for the Penguins. (So far no "money game" is scheduled for 2023)

From this years game at Michigan State, in which the Penguins were paid $750,000, through scheduled "money games" through 2027, Youngstown State will bring home $3.6 million dollars.

The breakdown includes:

2021   Michigan State        $750,000

2022  Kentucky                  $550,000

2023  ??????????

2024 Pittsburgh                $450,000

2025 Michigan State        $725,000

2026 Kentucky                 $575,000

2027 Maryland                 $600,000

(The contracts for each game was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act)

Youngstown was scheduled to play at Akron in 2020 and were guaranteed $300,000. That game was cancelled due to covid-19.

In comparison, Akron, an FBS school earned $3.6 million in two games this season. The Zips brought home $1.8 million each for games at Auburn & Ohio State.

YSU officials say the money earned in these games goes to the athletic department to help all sports.

guinpen:
Note that the zits got 1.8 million per game for two games this year. Guess that will pay some of their bills.

penguinpower:
This isn't really a lot of money.

Consider that you have to pay for:
1. Game charter flights
2. Recruiting flights/cars/expenses
3. Fund visits by athletes
4. Buy equipment uniforms etc.
5. Pay coach salaries including strength and conditioning, assistants, training for NCAA complianxe stuff etc.
6. 63 scholarships.

Etc.etc..

Does our fan attendance help with this? Yes but I would think that it is possible game day expenses alone (which I have notisted) would be higher than the turnout at times.

The money is needed for operations.  It's really not a lot.

YSUGO:
It’s not a lot of money and since we are an FCS school we don’t get  the big bucks for the money games.  Fan attendance basically the loges are the money makers. Fans in the stands the last few years doesn’t generate much revenue.  The students fund the athletic dept and I laugh when some fans make fun of MAC schools we couldn’t fund a division 2 program with what we get from the casual fan.  Same for our Penguin club compared to the heavy hitters in our league very little support lack of people joining her compared to them.  The Youngstown fan is cheap and always has been and with the declining business and fan base if not for the students we would be in a lesser division.

Penquin68:
No doubt YSU and many other state Universities in Ohio are in money trouble. They are in a similar box. Tuition increases are limited by the state of Ohio and enrollments are down due to changing demographics in much of the former Rust Belt; less young people graduating from high school and attending any college. And most state Universities have union contracts which have contract mandated raises for the work force. So less income and more expenses. Difficult situation for sure and it is happening at YSU, Akron U and others, some hurt more than others. If YSU or others try to cut progams or reduce employees to fix the overall budget, a big fight begins and the constant solution put forth by many is to cut athletic budgets to fix the problem.  Also YSU quit trying to serve the underprepared students, giving them to Eastern Gateway CommunityCollege, who now has an enrollment of 40,000! And remember back in the 1970's there was no state income tax and the state of Ohio covered about 75% of YSU's budget and the student tuition about 25%. Now those numbers are reversed and we have a state income tax. All these investigative critics in the media do not look into what happened here, but students now need to cover most of their college expenses and the state has a huge new revenue source.  Where did the money go? I doubt that the Dokata teams face similar money issues.  My fear is that our athletic budgets which are thin now will get thinner and our athletic programs will suffer. Forget the MAC, we will have trouble staying where we are. And it is not the Athletic Directors fault like many here like to claim; he is in a tough spot and doing very well in the box he is in. My opinion.

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