> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://my-stupid-alma-mater-is-driving-me-nuts.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # On our big ass stadium and fandom - URL: https://my-stupid-alma-mater-is-driving-me-nuts.ghost.io/on-our-big-ass-stadium-and-fandom/ - Published: 2026-10-16T18:30:54.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-16T18:30:54.000Z - Author: Bill DiFilippo On Thursday, The Athletic published a piece by Ralph D. Russo titled [*Penn State has more than 90,000 season ticket holders. The real story’s in the empty seats*](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7690503/2026/10/15/penn-state-football-stadium-renovation-ticket-prices/?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.I1E.1gId.-1EdXzPoiPTN&source=emp%5Fshared%5Farticle&smid=ta-ios-share). The rub: Right now, Penn State is in the middle of an enormously costly stadium renovation project. Some of the costs associated with this product are being passed down to schmucks like you and me—the ones who, in all likelihood, will never be in a position to [take advantage of the premium spaces](https://www.beaverstadiumrevitalization.com/products/marzano-club?ref=my-stupid-alma-mater-is-driving-me-nuts.ghost.io) that the stadium will now [offer for exorbitant amounts of money](https://www.beaverstadiumrevitalization.com/products/schuyler-club?ref=my-stupid-alma-mater-is-driving-me-nuts.ghost.io). I do not have season tickets, but a common thread in the piece and in the stories that fans have told after it was published is that people are struggling to justify re-upping their season tickets as they help address the costs of this big fancy project. Your $1,000 ticket is now a $3,000 ticket with a one-time donation. Whether or not that ticket has been in your family for 60 years is immaterial. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but money’s kind of a big deal in college football right now. The last guy talked about it a lot! You need to pay your players, who sometimes make millions of dollars. Your head coach makes seven or eight figures and is owed every single cent of it if you wanna fire him for not winning enough, which was the entire point of giving him seven or eight figures in the first place. Staffs—coordinators, position coaches, analysts, trainers, nutritionists, recruiting and player personnel folks, etc.—are gigantic and costly. Facilities look like they’re built in the image of what a 9-year-old would think is cool, and 9-year-olds don’t have to worry about staying within budget constraints. The business of college football is, of course, a total sham. In professional sports, there are collectively bargained rules that you have to abide by on spending, billionaire owners, lucrative TV deals that pay for teams in that league, a general ecosystem where everyone is more or less doing the same thing in different ways. A guy who owns a few car dealerships is not supposed to be able to influence things that much, so he does not. In college sports? Namely college football? Baby, that guy who owns a few car dealerships has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be god. There isn’t an adult in the room, no collective bargaining. The organizing bodies in the sport all pass things off to other people with the hopes that they’ll be so annoying that Congress passes something to shut them up. (As an aside, can you imagine Bernie Sanders and your average college football coach with Golden Retriever energy talking about literally anything? Try it sometime! It's a good laugh.) All of this happens while football is still expected to fund an entire athletic department. The whole system is built around “our field hockey team losing money is fine, our fencing team losing money is fine, our wrestling team losing money is fine, the other 25 non-MBB teams losing money is fine, because football.” It’s a bad system. It’s also the one we’ve had forever. Which brings us back to Russo’s story. It’s not *just* a Penn State story because, well, this is a problem everywhere. The line keeps going up and to the right and making sure you keep up is an existential thing. There is no other option. Every school in the country has to deal with the reality of what college football is in one way or another. It sucks! When we signed up as fans, we didn’t sign up for this part! Like one person said in the story: I wanna watch football, because I have a dumb man brain and football when it’s good makes me bark like a seal. (For posterity sake: Someone in the story did not say that they (or I, Bill DiFilippo) have a dumb man brain and football when it’s good makes them bark like a seal. That’s a me problem. But dude oh my god football when it’s good? The best.) – Let’s get to how this is, uniquely, a Penn State story. I think it is fair to say people agreed on the following things: 1. Beaver Stadium wasn’t maxing out its potential for what it could do, and… 2. Beaver Stadium needed work done to get to that point I lived in State College in 2017, when Blake Shelton held the first concert at Beaver Stadium. They did not hold another concert there until 2024\. The rumor of a Winter Classic in the building between two of the Penguins, Flyers, and (if Uncle Terry gets his way) Sabres is so old that Matt Campbell can offer it a scholarship as long as it is willing to adhere to values like "toughness" and "character" and "poor timeout usage." Hell, College Football Playoff games take place in December! Gotta winterize the stadium for those. It’s a palace in the middle of nowhere, a crown jewel that brings a smile to our faces whenever it rises from out of nowhere on I-99\. It being used seven times a year plus the Blue-White Game is flat-out leaving money on the table. This had to be addressed. It also got addressed at the worst possible time—I don’t know if you’ve been alive the last few years, but super expensive things that require labor and supplies and stuff? Hard to justify. That’s especially the case when Penn State has, in my view, done a pretty poor job explaining things. Yes, revitalizing the stadium is important, but why would I be happy if the only downstream effect I feel is the price of my ticket skyrocketing? Seemingly every bit of communication about the project has revolved around beautiful spaces that you can only get by paying a premium, and not on how every bit of this will lead to money pouring in to build a football team. At a time when a gallon of gas is more than $4, hotel rooms/AirBNBs are either expensive or in Clearfield, grocery prices are up, and stuff costs more in the stadium [unless Darian Somers points it out](https://stuffsomerssays.com/the-blog/2026/09/20/shrinkflation-inflation-come-to-beaver-stadium-concession-stands-in-2026/?ref=my-stupid-alma-mater-is-driving-me-nuts.ghost.io), that’s a tremendously hard pill to swallow—particularly when there is no guarantee you will be able to keep your seat. “I want to be honest with everyone,” Pat Kraft said at the start of this project. “We will have to make hard decisions that will likely lead to price increases that affect you. But we will do everything in our power to minimize the rise in ticket costs, while making sure you remain in your seat. At the same time, doing this will ensure we will be able to field a football team that will make you proud—winning games and championships on the field, and meeting the standard of student-athlete that you have as a Penn Stater.” That quote from Kraft was the exact sort of transparency and foresight that should have mitigated some of the anger towards him right now. Also: I completely made it up. Here’s what [he actually said](https://gopsusports.com/news/2024/05/21/trustees-approve-beaver-stadium-renovation-plans?ref=my-stupid-alma-mater-is-driving-me-nuts.ghost.io) (emphasis mine): "With home football games averaging $16.2 million in tourism and economic growth in our region, the potential return on investing in a premiere football stadium is significant," said Patrick Kraft, vice president for intercollegiate athletics. "Beyond the increased ability to host major events year-round as we winterize the stadium and build inventory, **the experience for our fans will be greatly enhanced while providing the facilities our football program needs to continue competing at the highest level.** I am grateful for the support of President Bendapudi and Penn State's Board of Trustees in making this investment for the future of our university community and athletics programs." The experience so far for the average fan: Bad football last year, bad football this year, a clunky stadium renovation happening in the middle of this, and the price of your seats skyrocketing without a football program that is making it worth your while on the field, just so rich people who haven't exactly been open to cutting big checks for better players are a little more comfy when they bless Beaver Stadium with their presence. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? — There are two issues that, I believe, Penn State struggles to make compatible with one another. One is community. The belief that this is bigger than you, me, Pat Kraft, Matt Campbell, former Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim manager Mike Scioscia, or any one person who has called Penn State home over the years. It’s the little town in the middle of nowhere that becomes a roaring city a few times a year because of football. It’s the fact that (and I hate this about myself) I feel spiritually compelled to say “We Are” to anyone I see wearing blue and white in Columbus, Ohio. It’s the traditions that we all try so hard to keep alive as the sport fundamentally changes. It’s the joy we feel in wins and the pain we feel in losses—while knowing that it’s called “Happy Valley,” as one of the stories goes, because of its resiliency in the face of the Great Depression. It’s the ticket that has been in your family since the Johnson administration. The stories you have from going to games with those who are no longer with us. The thought that one day you will take your kids and grandkids to games and get them to love Penn State the way that you do. Again, not just a Penn State thing—we just place a particular emphasis on it. The other issue: Ruthless capitalism. Your $15 million football roster of guys who do it the right way will probably get their teeth kicked in by the other team’s $40 million football roster. You need more—more money, more resources, more everything. If Person A wants to spend $100 to watch a football game and Person B wants to spend $50,000 to watch a football game, then the person who is going to get the football team closer to having a roster that can compete with the big guns is going to win, every time. They'll get around to doing something for Person A eventually, maybe. The sad reality is sentimentality can only go so far when that’s the case, because at the end of the day, fans want to win. Fans at every school want to win, win big, and win often. We are all chasing the thing Penn State fans felt in 1986—and the fans from back then are chasing that high once again. It is the best feeling in the world. Why we watch sports. Why all of us will go through life wondering why Drew Allar didn’t just throw the ball out of bounds against Notre Dame, even if, let’s face it, Ohio State probably would’ve won the title game. As such, Penn State needs money. Lots of it. Penn State knows it has a rabid fanbase that wants to win. For all the talk of Success With Honor, I have only once seen [a tailgate outside of someone’s final exams](https://onwardstate.com/2014/05/08/penn-state-students-tailgate-a-final/?ref=my-stupid-alma-mater-is-driving-me-nuts.ghost.io), ya know? That money has to come from somewhere. The bet is that it will come from the stadium, because for whatever reason, our class of car dealership owners aren’t cutting the checks that Ohio State’s class of car dealership owners (and also Les Wexner, which, yeesh) are cutting. Penn State is trying to maximize how much money it has. “Maximize” doesn’t mean sacrificing anything for the greater good. It means looking everywhere, especially on the margins, at additional capital investments on top of your inflated tickets and hot dogs and wherever else it can. *“Fundamentally, I think Penn Staters will always show up,” my pal and lifelong enemy Darian Somers said to The Athletic. “It’s bordering on this uncomfortable sense of, like, you’re just taking advantage of the fact that I’m really passionate about Penn State.”* I’m part of the problem here. I would saw my left arm off for Penn State to win a national championship. The only reason I wouldn’t saw my right arm off too is, well, sawing your arm off seems really hard with one arm. I’m also, if you have not been able to tell, deeply uncomfortable with the idea of asking for more and more and more at a time when the American economy is [more K-shaped than ever](https://fortune.com/article/what-is-k-shaped-economy-wealth-inequality-explained/?ref=my-stupid-alma-mater-is-driving-me-nuts.ghost.io). It's not lost on me that I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too, in a way. "I want Penn State to compete at the highest level!" I say. "No, not like that!" I say 30 seconds later, when I am asked to help fund their success. I completely understand that critique. I'd also say that the breaking point for me, or the breaking point for 95% of fans, comes after, oh, a couple thousand bucks, maybe five figures for some people. "We are going to extract as much as we can out of you" has a breaking point. It is very easy to reach that point for the overwhelming majority of a fanbase. My argument, pretty simply, is you need to do everything you possibly can to make sure you never get people close to that breaking point—because that is where fan apathy sets in, and apathy is the death knell in a sport where you need fans to be rabid every second of every hour of every day to fill your gigantic stadium. Anyway, I think the problem is in priorities and optics. The athletic director who spends games on the sidelines instead of rubbing elbows with rich people in boxes, then turns around and asks the rank-and-file for more money doesn’t look great. Fans losing the tickets they’ve had forever while beautiful new spaces are opened up for the wealthiest Penn State fans doesn’t look great. Celebrating huge gifts that go towards this stuff instead of a pass rush that can get home against Wisconsin doesn’t look great. The feeling that the new stadium isn’t being renovated for them, that their connection to Penn State football is being weakened, one bit of reinforced steel at a time. That's not great, either. And all of this happening on the heels of *\[gestures at least season’s catastrophe\]* and in the middle of *\[gestures at this season’s…well, not catastrophe yet but ask me again at around 8 p.m. on Saturday\]*? Disaster. This is a problem that every school in the country has to deal with in some form or fashion. What I think has become clear, though, is just how uniquely bad Penn State’s approach in addressing it has been. I'm not optimistic, but fingers crossed someone somewhere in State College reverses course before apathy sets in. Also, please beat Michigan this weekend, guys.