How Much Is Cael Sanderson Worth To Penn State?

How Much Is Cael Sanderson Worth To Penn State?

Cael Sanderson is still negotiating a new contract with Penn State University to remain their wrestling team head coach. We analyze how much he might be worth to the school.

Jul 5, 2017 by Andrew Spey
How Much Is Cael Sanderson Worth To Penn State?
It's the first week of July and Cael Sanderson has not yet signed a new contract with Penn State University to remain head coach of the wrestling team. 

Of course, that doesn't mean there is any real danger of Cael not returning to Happy Valley next fall. It could even be that Coach Sanderson and Penn State Athletic Director Sandy Barbour have already agreed to new terms and the only hold up is administerial. The best alternative to a new contract for either party (i.e. a new head coach for Penn State and a new program for Sanderson) would involve significant costs for both, compelling them to remain at the negotiating table even if there is a difference in the exact level of remuneration. 

Which is all to say that there is no reason for Nittany Lion faithful to panic, nor should any starry-eyed fans of competing programs get their hopes unduly up. 

However, that won't stop us from digging into the available financial data and hazarding a guess as to what Sanderson means to Penn State and what his new contract might say with regards to compensation. 

Caveats

It should go without saying that we are far removed from the negotiations and will not be making any kind of definitive judgements.

Furthermore, to spoil our own headline, what Cael Sanderson is "worth" to Penn State will vary by a great deal depending on who you ask. No number is necessarily wrong and the answer ultimately will be whatever the contract reads.

There is also more at stake than a salary. Sanderson is more than a head coach of a college team, he is a pillar of the wrestling community that is enmeshed in the social fabric of central Pennsylvania is a way that is incomparable to almost any other location. With that position comes myriad responsibilities beyond that of a mere head coach, all of which must be factored in (not to mention the alternative income streams that come with those added responsibilities)

Finally, this entire article should be considered an exercise in frivolity. Please don't take it for any more (or any less) than that. 

Penn State Wrestling Budget

Details on Penn State wrestling expenses and revenue can also be found in their publicly published NCAA financial reports. We've reproduced that data in the table below.

Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Total Revenue $768,168 $829,921 $889,792 $1,628,747 $1,168,259 $1,730,438
Total Expenses $1,399,621 $1,139,168 $1,688,581 $1,822,623 $2,139,539 $2,432,567
"Profit" -$631,453 -$309,247 -$798,789 -$193,876 -$971,280 -$702,129

"Profit" has been deliberately placed in scare quotes, as we are not analyzing a for-profit business unit using general accepted accounting principles. The data is unaudited and self-reported. Without total unfettered access to the financial documents (and a CPA), it is impossible to discern exactly what these numbers indicate, and the traditionally understood concept of "profit" is not applicable. 

For instance, in Penn State's case, a substantial portion of their declared revenue is from "contributions" and "endowment spending". The NCAA defines contributions as "amounts received from individuals, corporations, associations, foundations, clubs or other organizations designated for the operations of the athletics program." Endowment spending is defined as, "distributions from athletics restricted endowments and investment income used for athletics".

Both of those sources of revenue vary considerably from year to year and are not broken down in any further detail, making them intelligible as far as tea leaves go. If Penn State wrestling had to not "operate at a loss", one could assume that both revenue streams would increase as needed, not to mention all the adjustments that could be made on the expense side of the ledger. 

Without going too far down that rabbit hole, however, and with a little amateur forensic accounting, there are some more reliable figures buried in the reports that can tell us a little bit more about what the coaching staff at PSU are making and what kind of revenue they are helping generate. 

Current Contract

Sanderson's base salary for his previous contract has been reported as $175,000 per year, not including performance incentives. Unfortunately for us, Penn State does not breakdown compensation numbers by coach, or even team, which I suppose is their prerogative as a "state supported" but not a "state-owned" institution of higher education. 

Fortunately for us, the reports do breakdown all of wrestling's expenses EXCEPT coaching salaries. So with a little math and flexing of the metacarpals, we can get a pretty good idea what the entire coaching staff is pulling down annually.

Based on the total amount of money Penn State is saying they are spending on the wrestling team and subtracting everything that is mentioned as a line item, we can be reasonably certain that the total Penn State coaching staff, including bonuses, were annually paid an average of $500,000 to $750,000 from 2011 to 2016.

So let's say Sanderson was getting half of that, and his assistant coaches, Casey Cunningham, Cody Sanderson, and Jake Varner, are splitting the rest. And that is only the money coming from Penn State University. It is safe to assume all the coaches have alternative streams of revenue.

Incidentally, there is also a line item for wrestling specific support staff (for non-coaching positions), which has grown from about $50,000 in 2011 to over $100,000 in 2016.


Penn State Wrestling Ticket Revenue And Attendance

Since we have an idea of what Coach Cael and company are currently making, the next step is to see what kind of revenue the team is generating (and evading entirely for now any concerns about that revenue being the product of the labor of amateur student-athletes).

Despite the aforementioned fuzziness of the revenue data in the reports, the one line item that can be considered a reliable indicator for the sport's financial success is the ticket sales.

Penn State also publishes their attendance numbers every year, but that only provides quantity and not price, which is only one half of the demand equation. The ticket sales revenue provides those demand numbers. We've also included are the attendance figures, just because we've already looked them up, and just in case you want to figure out the average price of a Penn State dual meet ticket.

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Wrestling at least one match a year in the Bryce Jordan Center, a basketball arena with a capacity of 16,000 will do wonders for ticket revenue. Penn State did that once in 2014, twice in 2015, and then once again in 2016. 

The financial reports include a separate line item for parking, program and concession sales, but those have remained stable at around $50,000 per year for the wrestling team, even during the years where duals were held at the Bryce Jordan Center. 

It's probably safe to assume that ticket sales were lower previous to 2011, the first year Penn State won an NCAA national championship since 1952. It's also safe to assume Penn State would not have achieved their level of success nor see the recent increase in ticket sales without Sanderson's peerless stewarding of the program.

Other Sports At Penn State

To check against the possibility of a rising tide lifting all boats, we can look at the ticket sales of some of the other programs at Penn State, to see if ticket revenue is up across the board or just with the wrestling team. 

As you may have heard, they also play football at Penn State. That team unsurprisingly racked up the highest ticket sales of any Penn State sport by a huge margin. 

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But, as the grey line represents, football ticket sales have been trending downward. However we are only dealing with six years worth data, so don't put too much weight behind that trend. 

Nonetheless, recent football ticket revenue is flat at best, making the rise in wrestling revenue that much more impressive.

Penn State also has a men's basketball team (allegedly).

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As on the gridiron, ticket sales on the hardcourt is basically flat. Men's basketball is still the second highest grossing sport at Penn State, but wrestling is in third place and gaining. 

Wrestling's numbers are posted again below, but this time with a (mostly aesthetic) trend line for comparison. 

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Coming in at fourth place in ticket sales is women's basketball.

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Women's volleyball comes in at fifth, though that could change when the 2016-17 season report is released as the trend line suggests it might. 

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We should also add the men's ice hockey is probably the second most popular sport at Penn State after football, even though they've only been been competing since 2014. They deserve a mention, even though we don't have any data from 2011, 2012 or 2013. 

Men's ice hockey's remarkable sales figures are below. 

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So What Is Sanderson Worth Already?

Lots!

Sorry, that's a cop out answer, but we already spoiled the conclusion earlier. The true answer depends, and despite all the number crunching, we're in no position to offer anything but an somewhat educated guess. 

But, gun to our heads, and considering the current market place for championship winning D1 wrestling coaches, I'd say a yearly salary of $500,000 with some healthy performance incentives seems reasonable. 

On the other hand, Penn State University has many competing interests to keep in mind, and a very finite amount of resources to distribute. Remove football and men's and women's basketball and Penn State has only been spending about $9,000,000 per year on the entire coaching staffs of every other sport in the department.

So we all have to just wait and see what the powers that be can hash out and wildly speculate in the meantime. Stay tuned, as you know we will be!  

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