Penn State athletic direction Pat Kraft, sat down with Jon Sauber of the Centre Daily Times and with Audrey Snyder of Inside The Lions on The Nittany Dispatch late last week.
The topic of Penn State men’s basketball funding was raised.
Sauber at the 26:00 minute mark of the interview stated, “The men’s basketball budget has been a fun conversation of late. Where do you guys stand in the Big Ten in that regard and what is your vision for that program moving forward?”
Kraft responded, “Well, the funny thing is, no one knows where anyone stands….All right, are we at the top? No, we’re not spending $20 million on a basketball roster. And I gotta be honest, I don’t know if there will ever be a point that we would spend $20 million on a basketball roster. It’s not a good investment. Let’s just call it what it is.”
“The two previous cycles we were actually close to the top in NIL and what the marketing revenue was going to be and we did fall back, I’m not denying that…last year we were in the back half for sure, but it exploded so fast that I’m not a ATM machine, I just can’t hand cash over…you gotta have it supported by philanthropic endeavors, corporate sponsorships, stuff like that…we will do what’s right for Penn State basketball.”
Kraft continued, “What we want to make sure we do is compete at the highest level and we have a chance to get into the NCAA Tournament. I thought Mike and the new staff have done a remarkable job with this team…We have the resources, Mike has the resources to do what he needs to do. Will we ever be No. 1? Probably not. We will ever be No. 3? Probably not. But I don’t know what No. 1, No. 3, No. 5, No. 8, No. 16, No. 18 is…when Mike calls and needs money, we work on getting the money when it has to happen.”
Kraft concluded, “I think ‘Rhoadesy’ has done a good job. We went young (last year) and it bit us. Great recruiting class, and now you’re seeing older is just winning…I keep telling all the coaches to get the best athletes, recruit the best athletes you can and then coach…you gotta keep them locked in on coaching and not worried about what’s on the other side…What do they have? That gets you in a really bad spiral. I don’t know where we are in the Big Ten and quite honestly I don’t really care, we got to make sure we’re getting the most to our coaches that we can.”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Last June, the landmark House vs. NCAA antitrust class-action settlement received final approval and came into effect on July 1, 2025. This settlement put a revenue-sharing pool of a $21.5 million spending cap to universities that choose to opt in to the spending model that directly compensates student-athletes and teams’ roster development. Decisions on where the money is allocated across the sports’ teams are made by the athletic department.
This is why Kraft brought up sports’ programs also needing the support of third party “philanthropic endeavors and corporate sponsorships.” This is where NIL comes into play. It’s compensation where the university acts separate from the third party transaction. Penn State’s new partnership with Adidas should help with this third party, NIL compensation.
Sauber also reported that the men’s basketball funding nearly doubled for this year, which makes them near the $8 million mark for the 2026-2027 season.
According to Brendan Marks and CJ Moore of The Athletic, they say the magic number to just make it to the NCAA Tournament this year is probably around at least a $10 million roster. The Athletic surveyed 25 coaches from Power Five conferences at Peach Jam, an elite youth high school basketball tournament, last weekend and the coaches gave an estimation as to what the average team in their conference is spending on their rosters for this upcoming season. The Big Ten came in third at an average of $14.3 million. That’s a big difference from Penn State’s $8 million.
Kraft was complimentary towards Rhoades and his staff throughout the interview and he said the team this year is “really talented and really good.”
