By Chris Buchignani
Football has Eyes on Happy Valley
This past Saturday, under a more beautiful Blue and White sky than the most emotive artist could paint and with perfectly temperate “football weather” to defy even Grantland Rice’s fertile imagination, Penn State kicked off a season widely expected to evolve into a championship chase, one universally agreed upon as a campaign of consequence for the Nittany Lions and their head coach.
For those tens of thousands who flocked to Happy Valley to renew timeless traditions – or perhaps begin new ones – their beloved home away from home had rarely been more inviting. And thanks to CBS, in town to broadcast the nation’s number-two team in its season opener, the full spectrum of all our community has to offer was beamed onto screens from sea to shining sea.
From the bucolic vistas surrounding Beaver Stadium to the unparalleled atmosphere and top-tier football found within, every ingredient that makes Penn State’s home in the Nittany Valley a unique slice of Americana was on full display. As both the University and its host community reconcile with meeting the challenges of the 21st Century, there is simply no denying the imperative of attracting new people who will feel the Valley’s intangible pull tugging on their heartstrings, ranging from tourists to students to those ready to put down roots. In this effort, mass media remains among our most effective tools, and we can thank Penn State football – both past and present – for bringing it to our doorsteps.
Once upon a time, the sort of mind-boggling big-money television contracts that have reshaped the landscape of modern college sports were an impossibility. In those early days of college football on TV, the NCAA ruled access to its members’ broadcast rights with an iron fist. A 1984 lawsuit, spearheaded by the Universities of Oklahoma and Georgia but quietly bankrolled by several supportive institutions (including Penn State), won the right for schools to control their own destiny. Two years later, when the underdog Nittany Lions faced the mighty Miami Hurricanes for the 1986 national title, the risky experiment of airing a big-time college football game in prime time on a Friday night (pre-empting ‘Miami Vice!’) yielded such blockbuster success for NBC that it rewrote the book on how and when the sport worked on television.
When the time came for Penn State to shed its independent status and join a national conference, Joe Paterno and the University chose correctly in partnering with the Big Ten. The road may have been rocky, with Old State blazing the trail to our current conference landscape and earning the (as Coach Franklin might put it) “bumps and bruises” from the skeptical and change-averse outside and inside their prospective league. But more than three decades in, it’s tough to argue with the results. Nowhere is this clearer than with the Big Ten’s blockbuster media deal, the multi-network football smorgasbord that brought CBS to Beaver Stadium’s temporary press box this weekend and a colossal financial windfall to Penn State and the 17 other schools in the conference. The path that began with State’s iconic upset of the Hurricanes eventually led to the B1G’s billion-dollar jackpot.
Even as industry insiders turn their attention to the expiration of the major conference media deals (as we sit here today, 2030 for the Big Ten and 2034 for the SEC) and the inevitable turning of the realignment merry-go-round, the influence of the Big Ten’s current arrangement, the most lucrative in college sports, is evident everywhere. Penn State hopes to follow conference brethren Michigan and Ohio State in claiming a third straight football championship for the nation’s oldest league. The addition of West Coast programs has strengthened the Big Ten’s already-excellent Olympic sports, and major brands are lining up to fight it out over access to the conference’s top-tier universities (see: the seismic shift of Penn State’s just-announced switch from long-time partner Nike to Addidas). Now more directly than ever, money buys success in college athletics, and the B1G is doling out the biggest checks to its membership.
Penn State football offers the Nittany Valley’s people a chance to viscerally connect with all we love about our place. Superstars enjoying one final Autumn in the Happy Valley sun like Drew Allar, Nick Singleton, Kaytron Allen, and Dani Dennis-Sutton are our champions. Beaver Stadium is our cathedral. The tailgate fields are our town square.
With James Franklin’s team commanding the national spotlight as Penn State football hasn’t since the late 20th century, this most visible symbol of our world-class University (with due respect to the Nittany Lion and Mike the Mailman) is also drawing the cameras that will show off the best of Happy Valley to the next generation of Penn Staters, fans, and friends who’ll keep it special.
Chris Buchignani is cohost of The Obligatory PSU Podcast and The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show, entering its 10th season this Fall. He teaches a course on Penn State Football History for Penn State OLLI.
