How Super Bowl ties into Fresno State, conference realignment, future of college athletics

Fresno State was on a conference expansion track toward the end of the college football regular season, a potential and prime target in an eventual rebuild of a Pac-12 that had been decimated by defections to the Big Ten, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference. The Bulldogs have a brand, a fan base and geography on their side, situated in the middle of the most populous state in the country.

But since Oregon State and Washington State, the two remaining schools in the Pac-12, entered a scheduling partnership with the Mountain West Conference on Dec. 1, there have been a number of foreshocks that could signal cataclysmic change in college athletics.

Florida State, with an 13-0 record, was left out of the College Football Playoff and has since taken steps toward leaving the ACC by challenging the conference grant of rights; new NCAA president Charlie Baker proposed creating a new tier of highly-resourced universities that would be required to pay players through a trust fund; the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, the two richest leagues in the Power Five, or Power Four with the state of the Pac-12, have formed an advisory group to address the most pressing issues facing college athletics; the basketball team at Dartmouth has been ruled schools employees by the National Labor Relations Board and can to be school employees, setting up a vote to unionize.

Oregon State and Washington State have two years to plan and build a conference with the NCAA-minimum eight members, but by then it all could look completely different, putting additional pressures on Fresno State to close a financial gap with schools it competes with now in the Mountain West and in who it could be competing against in a much different future.

Athletics Director Terry Tumey compared it to his time in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, who on Sunday will play in the Super Bowl for a second time in five seasons and eighth time in franchise history.

He was there, in much leaner times from 2001 to ‘09. He was a football guy back then. He had played. He had coached. He was hired in player personnel as a scout, but was elevated to the director of football administration and also worked with the business side of the operation at a time it was building capital and revenues outside the league revenue sharing plan.

The league was evolving, its teams targeting and capturing more local revenue.

A super comparison

“We’ve done exactly the same thing in terms of trying to figure out how to stabilize, how to gain revenue,” Tumey said. “There’s going to have to be capitalization. How are we going to be able to get more resources in order for us to stay relevant for this community?

“We’ve done it right now through better ticket sales and sellouts and bodies in the seats, trying to strike more competitive deals from guarantee games, all those little deals, trying to monetize our brand that way.”

The challenges are similar, and different.

There have been a number of financial obstacles for Tumey to navigate at Fresno State. Institutional support to athletics has fluctuated year to year — it was lower in 2022-23 than it was in his first year in 2018-19, and was slashed by nearly $6 million during the pandemic. The athletics department receives about half the revenue from student fees that San Jose State does and around one-third that San Diego State does, even though all three are in the California State University system. It also receives little revenue from the Save Mart Center, where parking, concessions sales, suite leases or sponsorship deals are pledged to debt on the building and its operating deficit.

But Fresno State under Tumey has significantly increased football attendance — it was No. 1 among Group of Five conference programs last season, averaging 39,969.

It has taken advantage of the football scheduling market by securing revenue from guarantee games while finding beatable opponents. Fresno State in 2017 received $2.4 million to play at No. 1 Alabama and No. 16 Washington, games it lost by a combined score of 89-26. But in 2023, the Bulldogs banked the same amount of money to play at Purdue and at Arizona State, and won both games.

It has increased revenue from licensing and sponsorship deals. The Bulldog Foundation in 2022 also set a record for money raised for student-athlete scholarships.

A stadium renovation would drive additional revenue through corporate sponsorship, suites and premium seating revenue, parking and concessions sales. But additional revenue to drive operating budgets of 18 sports programs is a critical piece with what could be significant shifts in college football looming.

Facilities are one thing, operating expenses are another.

Financial challenges to overcome

“We have to figure out how to monetize every element of our high-profile sports,” Tumey said. “They have to be unencumbered in order to pay for what it needs to be successful — it has to go back into the operational budgets.

“We have to, in order not only to have a competitive team, but to serve these student-athletes the right way. That’s the only way this is going to work.”

Even in a rebuilt Pac-12 with Oregon State, Washington State and schools from the Mountain West or American Athletic Conference, Fresno State would face challenges.

Institutional support spiked in 2021-22 to $18.1 million, pushing athletics revenues to $54.1 million. But over the past five years not impacted by COVID-19, Fresno State has averaged around $50.1 million in revenue. In the Mountain West, that trails Air Force, San Diego State, UNLV, Colorado State and Colorado State.

Oregon State and Washington State have been in the low to mid $80 million range, though a significant chunk of that came from the Pac-12 media rights contract and conference and NCAA distributions, which will take a hit without major media markets in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Where the Beavers’ and Cougars’ athletics revenues will land in the future is unknown. What is known is that Fresno State has a financial gap to close, and that there will be more movement within college athletics in the future.

There will be a better understanding of what Tumey referred to as the “experiment of the flea” with UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington off to the Big Ten; Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah to the Big 12; and Cal and Stanford clear across the country in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

“Did that experiment work? You’ll know in two years,” he said. “You’ll know if that was a good decision for those institutions, or if the burden or the weight was too much to bear operationally and from a student-athlete experience standpoint.”

The 49ers made it work — on a much grander scale. Team revenues including a share of NFL media rights and sponsorship deals increased every year from 2005 and spiked when moving into Levi’s Stadium in 2014, hitting $427 million, up from $270 million in 2013. The revenue generated has only continued to grow.

Tumey made one other comparison that could be instructive — the Red Wave and the 49er Faithful.

“I think Fresno State is in a very attractive position because we have something that most places yearn for — we have a community that totally believes in the brand,” Tumey said. “That is the most important piece of the puzzle.

“People out there would love to have our community. People who have money would love to have our community. Look at our stadium on a Saturday afternoon. It’s full. Look at what Fresno State is like compared to probably 80 to 90% of the nation. Unless you’re a Power Five not many look like us, and even if you’re a Power Five you might not look like us. It’s a really good starting point.”