MORGANTOWN — Ever since it became apparent that West Virginia — along with everyone else in the Big 12 and beyond — was going to have to find a way to come up with $22 million a year to satisfy the revenue sharing settlement that now awaits court approval, Athletic Director Wren Baker has been trying to figure out where that money would come from.

He crunched the numbers and came up with a “suite” idea.

With not much expense meat on the bone to trim, he decided that one of the major approaches the Mountaineers’ athletic department would have to take to raise revenue was to add suites in Milan Puskar Stadium.

In truth, Milan Puskar Stadium is one of the best facilities in the Big 12. A ranking of the league’s football stadiums by clutchpoints.com last month had Mountaineer Field ranked third in the conference behind Utah’s Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City and Oklahoma State’s Boone Pickens Stadium.

Puskar Stadium was listed ahead of TCU’s Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth and Lavell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah.

“Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, West Virginia, is known for its raucous atmosphere and loyal Mountaineer fans. Opened in 1980 with a capacity of over 60,000, this stadium becomes a cauldron of noise, especially during night games and key matchups. The Mountaineer faithful are among the most passionate in college football, and the traditions, such as the singing of “Country Roads” after home victories, add to the unique experience. Milan Puskar Stadium is a quintessential college football venue that any fan should experience,” the article read.

But in this era of football where the biggest statistic to come out of any stadium isn’t points scored or passing yards but instead revenue made, Milan Puskar Stadium is lacking in one area — luxury suites.

Mountaineer Field has only 34 luxury suites, which is low for a Power 4 stadium and a sold luxury suite is worth a lot more to a football program in the long run than, well, I’ll say it, a long run.

Most of the suites are located not between the 20s but instead in the end zones.

That Baker was thinking along these lines became obvious about a week ago when he sent out a questionnaire asking for opinions on improvements that could be made to Milan Puskar Stadium.

Built in 1980, which surprisingly makes it the fifth “newest” stadium in the 16-team Big 12, it has undergone any number of upgrades over the years to improve comfort, concessions and to take advantage of technology.

But now the biggest need is a financial one.

“Athletics is not the most important thing the institution or the state does. I’m the first to say that,” Baker said on a recent visit to the Three Guys Before The Game Podcast. “I went to school on an academic scholarship, but athletics is the most visible thing. If you look at the periods of time where our enrollment was strong and growing, almost always correlates with when our athletic programs are the strongest.”

It is necessary, Baker reasons, to compete at the highest level in the highest level of athletics for the school, the athletes, the community and the state and that can only be done if you are financially sound and profitable.

Hence, the survey takes the pulse of the public.

“That survey should help tell us (what the demand for more suites is), Baker said. “There are people out there who will say, we are more of a blue-collar fan base than the others in the conference, but I don’t believe that.

“You look at Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Iowa State … The demographics of the alumni in their states is not much different than ours.”

Baker said he had just read an article that addressed the situation at Oklahoma State, which is viewed as a far richer program than WVU’s.

“There’s an article in the Tulsa World today who was talking about Oklahoma State’s finances. Oklahoma State has 123 suites, No. 1 in a power conference, I think. Oklahoma has around 4 million people, but a lot of those loyalties are the University of Oklahoma, so I would think their universe of fans is probably about like ours and their demographics are probably like ours.

“Their average attendance is about like ours and their demographics are about like ours. They are making off those suites free and clear $20 million,” Baker went on. “Well, compare their budget to ours and what’s the net difference …. It’s less than $20 million.”

In other words, the extra 90 extra suites account for a lot of that difference.

Baker believes from the survey’s response that there is a strong market for premium seating out there.

“It is imperative that we reach out to our fans and get their thoughts on how to transform Milan Puskar Stadium into a venue that will proudly house West Virginia football for many more decades to come,” Baker said when the survey was released. “By partnering with CSL, we will be able to collect the needed input to make strategic decisions of great magnitude for the stadium to ultimately help our department’s financial future.

“I have said many times that expanding premium options at the stadium would strengthen the fan experience and comfort, while helping the department in terms of revenue generation,” Baker added. “The survey will provide critical information needed to make future adjustments correctly to the stadium. I encourage all fans who receive the survey to complete it. Not only do we want to hear from you, we need to hear from you.”

On the podcast, Baker put it this way:

“It’s a great prospecting tool. We don’t know how many suite holders we are losing out on because we don’t have any suites left to sell. I do know I have had 10 or 12 people tell me that without a doubt they would buy a suite if we had it to sell. These are people I know can afford because I’ve seen their sponsorships with Learfield and other things.

“The survey will tell us a lot. We’ve already had 1,600 responses, which is incredible since we didn’t send this out to everybody. You had to have purchased a single ticket or season tickets to get the survey. The responses have to come from the email survey we sent out. Not everyone can reply.”

Or, as the great comedian Jackie Gleason would have put it:

How “suite” it is!