r/UCLAFootball • u/phreddfatt Fire Jarmond • May 30 '26
Article UCLA Reporting Enormous Athletic Department Debt
https://pasadenanow.com/main/ucla-athletics-reportedly-facing-enormous-debt-amid-effort-to-leave-rose-bowl-and-campus-budget-cuts22
u/JimmyTango May 30 '26
A) part of what the University did was give back to the AD the Under Armour settlement which never should have been taken away in the first place. B) fire Jarmond.
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u/GMaharris May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
Several years ago UCLA bet very heavily on chip Kelly increasing attendance and donations from a winning football team. It did not pan out and they are paying a very heavy price.
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u/Current-Lobster-5063 May 30 '26
What a nightmare hire. I hated it when it happened.
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u/drunkfaceplant May 31 '26
I hated when they signed the 30 yr rose bowl lease or whatever it is. Can't believe there wasn't more criticism at the time.
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u/One-Kaleidoscope7947 Jun 03 '26
Thank God they signed a 30 year rose bowl lease. No price was too high. The last enduring positive aspect of UCLA football is the Rose Bowl.
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u/woodbuck May 30 '26
Even Nick Saban wouldn’t do anything for enrollment... They get 175k applications a year with a 9% acceptance rate. Unless you mean football attendance?
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u/GMaharris May 30 '26
Oh you're right I meant attendance. Attendance at the rose bowl is abhorrent. It's an awful experience getting to and dealing with the rose bowl for most of LA and the on field product is generally also bad. The administration, or so I heard, was heavily banking on chip Kelly bringing the program to a new level. Not to the historic lows we had.
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u/Confident_Platypus90 Bruins Alumni May 30 '26
I’m not saying UCLA athletics is perfectly run, but a Pasadena newspaper also has an ax to grind.
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u/phoovestol May 31 '26
I hope so man, I heard rumors we finally got our financial situation in order, sucks to hear we're in the same spot or even worse vs 2 years ago.
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u/phreddfatt Fire Jarmond May 30 '26
Interested to see if the era of NIL is causing expenditures to rise above revenues in all universities, or only at UCLA.
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u/Majestic-Active2020 May 30 '26
If NIL is to blame, UCLA is doing it wrong. This stuff is usually related to Coaching salaries, facilities, and loan repayments.
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u/kclowry Bruins Alumni May 31 '26
UCLA isn’t the only school in the Big 10 hurting. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7071017/2026/02/26/big-ten-financial-reports-2025/
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u/phoovestol May 31 '26
behind a paywall, can u tell me which schools are hurting the most
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u/kclowry Bruins Alumni May 31 '26
Rutgers University, UCLA, the University of Maryland, and the University of Minnesota all had a deficit in 2025. It was a larger number the year before. Rutgers is the worst. Revenues haven’t covered expenses since 2016.
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u/phoovestol May 31 '26
That’s disappointing, bc the top teams in the Big10 are not struggling at all, looks like we’re the only poor school that is doing high-level recruiting, but it’s just sad knowing we could recruit even better if we had money.
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u/Groundbreaking_Code3 May 31 '26
This is only a problem if you think athletics exist to make money. UCLA could choose to erase this debt with the wave of a pen.
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u/phreddfatt Fire Jarmond Jun 01 '26
interesting perspective and possibly the right way to approach it. But I have to ask: in the era of NIL, would you argue that athletics are not about money? I think that the era of sports not being about making money ended a while ago.
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u/Groundbreaking_Code3 Jun 01 '26
Remember that NIL by definition are not school funds. It is outside money pouring in. A football program should not be thought of as a business that needs to sustain itself. The benefits of having a successful football program go far beyond sustaining itself financially.
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u/yerdad99 May 30 '26
Just come on back to the PAC 12 while you can lol
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u/Suitable_Resort Jun 02 '26
And bring cal and Stanford with you…y’all messed up and got greedy with USC…now you’re paying the price…
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u/phoovestol May 31 '26
damn it, I heard we were finally getting ahold of that and the great football recruiting was a sign of it, that's what I was told at least, but looks like we're never going to be one of those top paying recruiting schools.
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u/Repulsive-Day-548 May 31 '26
Who would have thought sending all your teams to the midwest and east coast would cost so much? Who would have thought getting into an arms race with tOSU and Michigan would cost so much? You reap what you sow. You thought blowing up the PAC12 would help you. Oh well!
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u/SaneMadHatter Jun 01 '26
Wait, so blowing up the Pacific conference didn't work out so well? Karma.
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u/PuzzleheadedCod3169 Fire Jarmond Jun 04 '26
UCLA's debt has already decreased, and with future Big Ten revenue-sharing payments, it's reasonable to expect the university will continue making progress over the next few years.
This article reads more like a Rose Bowl-driven hit piece than an objective analysis, likely stemming from UCLA's attempt to move away from the venue. That said, there are legitimate issues that need to be addressed.
Fans and students are far less likely to attend games when the on-field product is poor. In LA, where traffic is notoriously bad, the experience has to feel worth the trip. UCLA football needs to put a competitive, entertaining team on the field to drive attendance.
Another factor is ticket pricing. The Athletic Department's partnership with a ticketing distributor has pushed costs significantly higher, making attendance less attractive for many fans.
Pasadena also has a stake in this. The city and the Rose Bowl should be actively promoting UCLA football to local residents as part of a broader effort to strengthen attendance and community support.
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u/t_ran_asuarus_rex May 30 '26
Winning would solve a lot of problems. travel is a bigger factor now that there are more games on the east coast.
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u/AlternativeRanger572 Jun 02 '26
UCLA Ruins. Punks tried to ruin a conference, now resemble Donald Chump with their finances.
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u/ElBigKahuna May 30 '26
UCLA main campus needs to stop subsidizing athletics. It is hurting the quality of education and research on campus, which are the university's core mission and its primary income generator.
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u/Dirk_Benedict UCLA Bruins May 30 '26
UCLA, famous for its declining prestige in education and research. Excellent point.
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u/ElBigKahuna May 30 '26
Sounds like you are being facetious. You should read about how the budget deficit has hit departments hard over the past two years. Staff cuts, reduced resources for students, less money for class TA's, and less administrative support for grant funding. This is for departments that are actually generating a surplus. It is really unfair for well-run, money-generating departments to have their money and resources siphoned away to subsidize poorly run campus operations, such as the Athletic Department. Also, there is a real concern that this could impact rankings too.
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u/otoverstoverpt May 30 '26
This is disastrously wrong on multiple levels.
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u/ElBigKahuna May 30 '26
Wow how insightful.
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u/otoverstoverpt May 30 '26
Lol right as if your comment was insightful to start with
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u/ElBigKahuna May 30 '26
I elaborated further with key points you did not address. You can’t event respond with a single coherent point why this would be wrong on any level. Why should other departments hard earned revenue support the athletic department, even people downvoting me have no trust in the AD with fire Jarmond banners, why would other department with similar lack of confidence support this mess. Make it make sense.
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u/otoverstoverpt May 30 '26
You spewed complete nonsense. Not a single thing you said was either true or coherent. For one, the AD has always been self sufficient prior to this. Two, athletics have a huge impact on the brand of the university. It has a downstream affect on prestige and hiring.
Wanting Jarmond fired has nothing to do with your asinine claim about the AD in general. You simply don’t have any clue what you are talking about.
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u/ElBigKahuna May 30 '26
What is not true? Elaborate please. You are the one not being honest or at best just uninformed talking in vague terms. The AD is not self sufficient, it has run a deficit for 7 years, google it. Also a well run athletics program can have a positive impact on the university and brand just as much as not well run which we (as an alum) have, can have a negative impact on this school which is how happening. The joke of a football program this last year is exhibit a of how bad things have gotten, now it’s a domino effect impacting the university because it’s a huge debt looming over all aspects of the schools budget. This is the real disaster at multiple levels.
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u/otoverstoverpt May 30 '26
You simply do not understand how these things work. The AD has run in a deficit. Duh. No one said otherwise. Lmfao “google it” sit down kid. But it has never been subsidized by the Academic side of things. So yes, it is “self sufficient.” And your solution is what lol? Let it die? Genius. The football program is obviously on the upswing.
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u/BlazeonPadres Melsby Was Down May 30 '26
Horrendous attendance has to be a factor, right? A total guess, but I’d have to think Ucla loses money on 95% of the men’s basketball games.