Fresno State playing catch up as it joins Pac-12. Campus president says it’s a group effort

Fresno State’s move to the Pac-12 is, as athletics director Garrett Klassy said, transformative. It puts the Bulldogs on an elevated platform. It is where they want and need to be, as college athletics continue to evolve.

But it also puts them in a conference that is likely to adopt an unequal revenue-sharing plan, with the teams that participate in postseason play in football, men’s basketball and perhaps other sports earning larger shares of the returns from big-money bowl games and the NCAA Tournament.

That may not be a problem in football. Former coach Jeff Tedford ignited the best stretch of Fresno State football in decades, but there is a 4-8 season sandwiched in there. The question becomes how quickly the program can be turned when off the rails, and that becomes more difficult if the program is not competitively resourced.

In basketball, the Bulldogs are in deep given the lack of revenue the athletics department receives playing in the Save Mart Center, where it pays rent while receiving no cut of parking, concessions, suite leases or sponsorships.

Fresno State has played in just one NCAA Tournament game since it moved into the building for the 2003-04 season and that was nine years ago.

“There’s always pressure, right?” Klassy said. “I mean, it doesn’t matter if there are performance-based incentives or not. Winning obviously helps with all revenue streams whether it’s ticket sales, corporate sponsorships, donations, you name it. I don’t think it adds pressure. There’s pressure every day.

“If we don’t win in football and we don’t win in the Pac-12, you’re probably talking to a different athletics director down the road in a few years — and I don’t want that to happen.”

University president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, who long has promoted the potential of playing on a bigger stage in pursuing conference expansion opportunities, put hammer to nail in that it is a shared opportunity.

Also, however, a shared responsibility.

WILL RED WAVE RESPOND TO PAC-12 OPPORTUNITY?

“Oftentimes, we tend to think it’s the university that is fully responsible for what this opportunity represents,” Jiménez-Sandoval said. “But it’s the collective us, in which we consider ourselves as direct participants in building our brand.

“It’s the Red Wave coming together, and it’s really growing the Red Wave. It’s educating the greater population of the Valley in terms of what Fresno State athletics brings to the table in growing the brand beyond the region, and in doing so bringing new economic opportunities to us here. It’s a collective, shared responsibility of growing our brand as direct participants of Bulldogs athletics.”

But how would the Red Wave react if, for instance, Fresno State were to raise football ticket prices in 2026 in an effort to generate badly-needed revenue as it heads into its first season in a rebuilt Pac-12?

Worth noting: Washington State, one of two schools left behind in the Pac-12 when the conference was decimated by defections, plays in a football stadium with a considerably smaller capacity than Fresno State. It also generates considerably more revenue from football ticket sales than Fresno State.

The Cougars play in Martin Stadium, which holds 32,592, and generated $9,361,787 in ticket revenue in 2022-23. The Bulldogs play in Valley Children’s Stadium, which holds 40,727, and generated $5,313,916 in ticket revenue.

Oregon State, the other Pac-12 holdover, also plays in a smaller stadium and generates more ticket revenue.

Fresno State, at this point, is behind its Pac-12 peers in several key sources of revenue, according to a database of NCAA finances maintained by Sportico. The data for student fees and football spending are from the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics database.

Here’s a look at where the Bulldogs rank as they move toward the Pac-12 along with Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State from the Mountain West:

FOOTBALL TICKET SALES

• Washington State: $9,361,787
• Boise State: $6,112,389
• Oregon State: $5,904,554
• San Diego State: $5,668,293
• Fresno State: $5,393,916
• Colorado State: $3,618,567

ALL-SPORTS TICKET SALES

• Washington State: $10,198,582
• Oregon State: $9,950,387
• San Diego State: $9,772,159
• Boise State: $7,716,891
• Fresno State: $6,485,012
• Colorado State: $4,600,146

DIRECT INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

• Colorado State: $21,812,107
• Fresno State: $15,494,750
• San Diego State: $15,377,612
• Boise State: $11,524,942
• Oregon State: $7,920,000
• Washington State: $5,882,999

FOOTBALL SPENDING

• Colorado State: $29,782,795
• Oregon State: $26,351,151
• Washington State: $25,335,772
• Boise State: $21,475,842
• San Diego State: $20,142,240
• Fresno State: $16,874,669

DONATIONS

• San Diego State: $38,353,018
• Oregon State: $14,783,394
• Boise State: $12,741,254
• Washington State: $11,774,266
• Colorado State: $11,518,062
• Fresno State: $5,761,377

LICENSING

• San Diego State: $10,918,390
• Oregon State: $10,041,519
• Colorado State: $6,967,090
• Boise State: $6,342,640
• Washington State: $4,584,354
• Fresno State: $3,713,826

STUDENT FEES

• San Diego State: $13.9 million
• Colorado State: $5.8 million
• Boise State: $4.7 million
• Fresno State: $4.2 million
• Oregon State: $2.8 million
• Washington State: $900,000

Fresno State ranks highest in direct institutional support, funds from the university, and low in student fees, donations and licensing revenue.

The numbers in those two categories for Oregon State and Washington State are likely to change — before the breakup of the Pac-12, they were receiving more than $30 million a year in media rights revenue.

This story was originally published September 15, 2024 at 11:00 AM.