When you think of popular Philadelphia sports teams, who comes to mind? The reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles? The Phillies? The 76ers? Heck, what about the Villanova Wildcats men’s basketball team. And isn’t Penn State close to Philly anyway?
I bet you did not think about the “other” football team that plays at Lincoln Financial Field, the Temple University Owls. I love the Eagles as much as the next guy. But their greedy ownership not only does not care about the success of their roommate, who just so happens to be one of the largest employers in the city of Philadelphia, they want to keep Temple football in the cellar.
That’s right ladies and gentlemen. Your beloved Philadelphia Eagles are the bad guys. But not like the funny ones who thew snow balls at Santa or the drunken ones who heckle Cowboys fans at the tailgate. They are bona fide criminals who have gotten away with swindling Temple University out of tens of millions of dollars over the past two decades. The motto popularized by Eagles legend Jason Kelce of “No one likes us, we don’t care,” refers to the bad rap that the Eagles and their fans get around the NFL. Unfortunately, Temples own city, for which they provide hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue per year, doesn’t like them, and care as Temple might, they seem to keep getting screwed over regardless.
I’m not saying that Temple would have Alabama level success if they didn’t have to shell out all this cash to the Eagles, but their football team, and their athletics as a whole would be in a better spot.
When Temple cut seven sports programs in 2013 to shave $3M off their athletic budget, many were quick to criticize them. Why would they sacrifice all these sports for a team that wins two games a year? Well, if the Eagles didn’t charge the city’s only public university out the ass to play a few football games there per year it wouldn’t have gotten to that point.
Temple, like many other universities, understands that a strong football program can be a beneficial asset to their school. It means more exposure for the university. That’s part of the reason why their board voted to keep the football program in a 2005 meeting. Temples footballs historical run of success in the 2010s proved that under competent leadership, the program can be successful.
But surely the Eagles outrageously high rent for Temple must be justifiable right? There has to be a catch. Wrong. Francis Bacon once said, “Opportunity makes a thief,” and the Eagles have a great opportunity to extort Temple through their deal with the city of Philadelphia made when constructing the Linc.
Lincoln Financial field was completed in 2003 with a total cost of $518.0M. $330M of the funding was private, and $188M (36%) of the funding was from the city of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania. The Eagles also receive a stadium operating subsidy, which is not included in the public funding contribution, and do not actually own the stadium, they lease the land from the city. The Eagles sublease the stadium to Temple, which gives them negotiating power, a power which they have abused terribly. Temple also gives parking revenue to the Eagles, and keeps only 10% of concession revenue from their football games, with the rest going to big brother. Although Temple paid just under $1M to play at the Linc in 2023 compared the over $4.5M they paid in 2022, they paid $3M in 2024, and will pay $4.5M in 2025.
While Temple football is struggling to break even, the Eagles are swimming in cash. As of the 2024 season, the Eagles were valued at $6.6B, the 8th most valuable franchise in the NFL. Thanks to financial records released by the publicly owned Green Bay Packers following the COVID affected 2020 season, we know NFL teams are profitable without even selling tickets, parking spots, and concessions.
So, what, if anything, can be done about Temple’s predicament? And who should be held accountable?
Although the Philadelphia Eagles ownership are the ones who should rightfully shoulder most of the blame and ultimately decide how much they charge Temple, an effort can, and must be made by Temple’s administration to re-negotiate this contract. New university president John Fry claims he is committed to keeping the football program following rumors this past fall that the program would be cut. He needs to put his money where his mouth is by getting to work on a new deal. Though not the fault of the current administration, previous Temple leadership made decisions that took the program in a direction that placed them in their current predicament.
Once upon a time, the Temple Owls had their own football stadium, named Temple Stadium. It opened in 1928 at Mount Pleasant Avenue and Michener Street in North Philadelphia and had a capacity of 30,000 fans. It served as the proud home of the Owls for a half century before Temple moved to Veterans stadium due their own stadium falling into a state of disrepair. Temple Stadium was demolished in 1997, and the university sold the 32-acre property to Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church for $4.5M, which is the same price Temple will pay just to play the 2025 season at the Linc. Although the programs outlook seemed bleak at the time the property was sold, in hindsight it was a rash decision as finding real estate in North Philly to build a 35,000-seat football stadium without displacing homes or businesses is impossible. This was proved by Temples failed attempt around a decade ago to build a stadium in the Northwestern corner of their campus. The administration owes it to the program to at least try to renegotiate this deal.
So, what leverage does Temple have?
They are the largest college in Philadelphia, the 6th largest employer in the city of Philadelphia, and they support over 40,000 jobs statewide. Temple also generates $200M+ in tax revenue annually for the state of Pennsylvania. By cutting down this deal to under $1M a year, Temple athletics would have an extra $3.5M per year to spend. In the short term, they could re-invest the money saved into their bread and butter: the football program (NIL deals, facility upgrades, etc.) to get fans back into the seats. More fans in the seats would be beneficial to the local economy, it would generate more revenue through taxes paid as a part of the ticket purchases, more memorabilia and food would purchased at stadium, more folks would go out to Xfinity live after the game is over, etc. Once the football programs success becomes more sustained and revenue increases, they can use the funds saved as a part of the new deal to bring back sports that were cut in 2013.
Despite all that, Temple is still going to have a tough time convincing the Eagles to give them a discount. After all, we’re talking about a franchise that sold cups of snow from their playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams for $50 each for crying out loud. Temple needs bring in to perspective the relationship between fellow Keystone State college Pitt’s relationship with the Steelers. Pitt and the Steelers share Acrisure stadium, which was funded similarly to Lincoln Financial field. Pitt and the Steelers each paid a large sum up front when they signed the lease for the stadium, and Pitt now only pays a portion of their ticket sales to the Steelers, nothing more. Although the portion of the sum that Pitt paid was not made public, we can assume that the Steelers probably paid for most of it, being the larger entity. Temple has paid at least $27M to the Eagles since they began playing at the Linc in 2003, not including parking or concessions.
The Owls took a good step forward in fixing up their program by hiring legendary coach K.C. Keeler following the end of the 2024 season to replace a glorified running backs coach who was a nepo hire – Stan Drayton. Drayton’s rushing offense was consistently one of the worst in the country, ironically enough.
In the short term, improvement on the field will give Temple a little bit of leverage in the push to re-negotiate. But they already have all the tools they need to get a deal done, and it’s up to Temple’s administration to convince the Eagles and the city of Philadelphia that while lowering Temples rent is ethically the bare minimum, it is also an investment in the city’s economy.
Group of five til' I die 