Since his hiring, Fresno State Athletic Director Garrett Klassy has been faced with heavy tasks.
Klassy hired new Fresno State football Head Coach Mike Entz and is now faced with a betting scandal related to the men’s basketball team that has shaken the Valley.
“When I first saw it, I’m like, OK, this kind of explains some of the dumb, bone-headed, mistakes,” said Nick Cummens, Media, Communications and Journalism student at Fresno State.
Despite all this, Klassy still has plans for the future of Fresno State Athletics.
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute held an event in January with Klassy as a keynote speaker, where he expressed his plans for the future.
Make football dominate
While there is no question that football brings in the most fan attendance for Fresno State Athletics, Klassy made it a point of emphasis to keep that the top sport at Fresno State.
“We need football to succeed to get them [other sports] the proper funding that they need to fund them at a high level to win championships and I’m ashamed to say that we are not funding at the level that we need them at,” Klassy said.
In 2024, Fresno State football led the Mountain West with the most fan attendance averaging 40,600 fans per game.
For some of those fans, the stadium has not been accessible with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Klassy and university President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval have been in talks about stadium upgrades.
“Whether that’s, you know, through whatever ballot measures, we have to look at some parallel tracks,” Klassy said. “This is the third plan, when it’s released it has to be realistic.”
While Klassy emphasizes football remaining prominent at Fresno State, football went $713,079.23 over budget for the 2023 year.
A Freedom of Information Act, requested by The Collegian, found football’s annual budget was $8,599,830 and what was spent was $9,312,909.23. Most of the team’s spending was on team travel using $1,150,392.03 of the budget.
This money doesn’t include money received from The Bulldog Foundation.
This will only significantly increase with the move to the Pac-12.
Move to the Pac-12
On Sept. 12, Fresno State announced that it would be moving to the Pac-12 conference. With that came many questions on what that would mean for the finances of Fresno State.
As part of the transition, Fresno State will have to pay $17 million to the Mountain West in exit fees.
Klassy plans to do this through TV revenue or negotiations.
“In the bylaws, it’s supposed to be two years of conference distributions, so that would be two years of TV revenue,” Klassy said. “The Pac-12, meaning Washington and Oregon State, have a litigation going on with the poaching fees, we have a litigation going on on our exit fees.”
Right now, the next media deal is in discussion to be owned by multiple networks with CBS, Fox Sports and ESPN in the mix.
Budget cuts
California State University (CSU) schools are in the midst of a 7.95% budget cut for the 2025-26 year and many school’s athletic departments have felt the impact.
Sonoma State discontinued its athletics program entirely, leaving many athletes without a sports team and coaches without jobs.
Fresno State is among the schools that could be impacted.
“We’re gonna have to make some tough decisions next year, and but we’re gonna do that,” Klassy said. “You know, we have to make sure that the places that we can bring more revenue or visibility can’t go backwards.”
Klassy pointed out that football will not be one of the sports impacted.
“I mean football, for an example, that’s difficult to go backwards when we’re competing against schools that have $2 million more in football revenue,” Klassy said.
This potentially means other sports at Fresno State could be impacted or at risk of being discontinued.
Klassy’s plans for the future of Fresno State Athletics are set, but challenges quickly arise with state budget cuts, exit fees and program scandals.
