Penn State more than deserved the punishments that were handed down against its beloved football program. Say what you want about jurisdiction and the slippery slope, but the bottom line is that the NCAA needed to come down strong on PSU to show that nothing is right with a culture and a football program that values winning over the protection of children’s safety.
But while the NCAA certainly did its job by effectively rendering Penn State football irrelevant for at least the next decade, the television powers that be have taken the force out of that punishment by keeping the Nittany Lions in the national spotlight.
The four-year bowl ban and unprecedented loss of scholarships was designed to take Penn State’s football program out of the national spotlight. In turn, the NCAA felt, the program would feel the pain where it hurt most: in the pocketbook.
Sure, the NCAA could have done the job itself. There is a precedent for television bans to be used as punishment for violations, but only in the case where a school is hit with the proverbial “death penalty," a punishment that was considered for PSU but to this day has remained unused for over 20 years.
But in the absence of this additional NCAA mandate—a mandate that could have been perceived as vindictive and unnecessary—those in charge of national television scheduling had a responsibility to get the job done. Thus far, they have completely failed.
Take away history (history that, per NCAA mandate, has been partially erased) and Penn State is not a team worthy of national coverage at this point. The open transfer mandate has led to an exodus of players from State College, with the sanctions making it impossible for the program to replenish.
They started the season 0-2, losing to Ohio and Virginia.
Despite that start, the Nittany Lions have been on national television all four weeks. In fact, they have been on the network channel, ABC—as opposed to the cable channel, ESPN—for the past three.
It certainly isn’t for want of covering the Nittany Lions’ opponents. There could be an argument for showing Virginia, but last time I checked, Ohio, Navy and Temple aren’t primetime teams.
However you try to avoid the conclusion, it remains: Penn State is continuing to be treated as an elite football program.
If this continues, Penn State will feel none of the pain the NCAA had intended to impart upon its beloved football program.
None.
Sure, it hurts from an excitement standpoint to not have the opportunity to compete in a postseason game. But from a strictly financial standpoint, this could ironically help Penn State.
Outside of the BCS games and a few top-tier bowls, bowl payouts do not even come close to covering a school’s expenses when it comes to financing a bowl trip.
In short, teams LOSE money by playing in the postseason.
So the bowl ban does nothing to the bottom line of Penn State athletics. It is a punishment without an effective backbone.
Except, that is, if the team ends up losing national television exposure because of this imposed irrelevance. Not only does the loss of exposure hurt recruiting (as if it could get any worse for coach Bill O’Brien’s staff), but more importantly, it hurts the bottom line, reducing the television payout the school is able to receive each and every week of the season.
Without national television contracts, college football programs DO NOT make money. This is why non-BCS teams have to take pay games and serve as sacrificial lambs in the non-conference season. Without those payments, football programs across the country would be shutting their doors.
The BCS teams profit almost exclusively from the money they receive in television rights contracts. By shutting Penn State out of the Big Ten’s national rights contract and prohibiting the Nittany Lions from being spotlighted on ABC, the punishment handed down on PSU would have significant force. It would potentially be damaging enough to leave the school with no option other than to shut down football for a season or two.
This is what the NCAA had hoped would come out of the punishments it handed down over the summer. It had hoped executives at ESPN, Big Ten Network and elsewhere would recognize the obvious issues with having Penn State placed in primetime and would instead choose to televise games being played elsewhere. You would hope executives at the ad agencies responsible for buying airtime during these games would see much of the same.
Unfortunately, they haven’t and for that we should all be worried. Even a scandal with this degree of indecency has been unable to overcome the power of the almighty game that is football. College or NFL, the game, and the money it generates, is quickly becoming too powerful for its own good.
It is a sad statement about where we are as a people when we cannot forget our incessant desire for financial gain, not even when it smacks the face of a constitutional right as basic and fundamental as that of having a childhood free of violence and abuse.
It was sad enough to see that “win at all costs” attitude play out in State College under Joe Paterno. It is perhaps even more worrisome to see it played out even in the scandal’s aftermath.
Editor's note: We have removed the author's email due to numerous emails he has received regarding an email he allegedly sent. We are currently looking into the matter.
