Penn State’s newly released payroll data pulls back the curtain on a monster paycheck for former football coach James Franklin and a head-scratching omission where wrestling legend Cael Sanderson used to sit. In the university’s state-mandated disclosure of top earners, Franklin is listed as the highest-paid employee for 2024–25 with roughly $8.6 million in total compensation, while Sanderson, previously reported at about $1.02 million, is nowhere to be found. The fresh numbers land as Penn State continues to navigate major coaching shifts and the quirks of how it reports bonuses and incentives.
What’s in the report
According to PennLive, the university’s right-to-know filing lists Franklin’s 2024–25 total compensation at $8,570,000, putting him comfortably at the top of the reported pay chart for that year. PennLive also notes that athletics staff make up a hefty share of the highest-paid employees reported by the university.
Top earners beyond Franklin
Local reporting and the filing show that Franklin is far from alone among big athletic payouts. Stephen Massini was listed at about $3,595,000, Mike Rhoades at $3,547,000, and Andy Kotelnicki at roughly $3,014,000 for 2024–25, according to the Centre Daily Times. Those totals place multiple members of the athletic department among the university’s largest reported compensation packages of the year.
Where’s Cael Sanderson?
Wrestling coach Cael Sanderson, reported at about $1,017,000 for 2023–24, does not appear on the 2024–25 top-earners list, and earlier coverage helps explain why. The breakdown of Sanderson’s 2023–24 compensation, as reported by Yahoo Sports, showed a relatively modest base salary paired with a much larger haul in bonuses and incentives, and PennLive notes that incentive-heavy pay often is not reflected in the same way across the university’s public reporting categories.
Why the accounting matters
The disclosures are published under reporting rules that apply to Pennsylvania’s state-related universities, a transparency requirement that forces institutions to list their highest-paid employees and related totals, as WITF has explained. Because different reports slice compensation into base pay, IRS-measured totals, retirement contributions, and incentive pay in different ways, the public lists can easily understate or blur how much cash coaches actually pull in during a given year.
The timing adds another wrinkle. Franklin left Penn State in October 2025 and was later linked to a job at Virginia Tech, and the payroll snapshot does not always capture buyouts, settlements, or later hires, according to reporting by Sporting News. For anyone tracking university spending, the new filing is a reminder that headline numbers need context and that the way pay is categorized can quietly change what shows up on the page.
_(cropped).jpg){kind=link}