Inside UCLA’s money problem: Donors quit writing checks long before AD Martin Jarmond was fired

The UCLA athletics crisis has reached a breaking point. Chancellor Julio Frenk fired athletic director Martin Jarmond on Monday, just five days before Bob Chesney’s debut as head coach, exposing a program hemorrhaging money and goodwill despite its historic move to the Big Ten. The decision capped years of declining donor confidence, ballooning deficits, and administrative missteps that have left one of college sports’ most storied brands fighting for financial survival.

Jarmond’s dismissal did not arrive in a vacuum. Donor contributions had fallen for three consecutive years — from $18.5 million in fiscal 2022 to $13.5 million in fiscal 2025 — even as the Bruins prepared for their lucrative Big Ten debut. By the time Frenk pulled the trigger, UCLA ranked 14th out of 16 public Big Ten schools in donations, well below the conference median of $34.1 million and trailing fellow newcomer Washington, which raised $52.9 million, according to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database.

The donor revolt became public nearly a year ago when nearly a dozen of the program’s largest benefactors approached the Los Angeles Times to air their grievances. Their complaints were specific: UCLA had been slow to embrace the NIL marketplace, and Jarmond had retained football coach Chip Kelly longer than many supporters believed warranted. Behind the scenes, the checks had already stopped flowing.

A 2023 accident — the accidental leak of a spreadsheet containing donors’ personal giving histories, addresses, and phone numbers, including Hall of Famer Troy Aikman — further eroded trust. The athletics department never apologised for the breach.

“What we’re seeing isn’t just a rough patch. It’s institutional apathy,” one booster told the Times in October 2025. “If the administration doesn’t care, why should fans and recruits?”

Frenk’s letter to supporters on Monday acknowledged what the numbers had long suggested. “UCLA Athletics currently carries a significant financial deficit, and its current path is not sustainable,” he wrote. The department has lost money every year since 2019, racking up a cumulative deficit of $241.1 million.

Fiscal 2025 illustrated the precariousness of the situation. The department reported $151.8 million in revenue against $173.4 million in expenses, producing a net loss of $21.6 million. That figure, however, was only achievable because the university injected $31.1 million in institutional support. Strip away that subsidy, and the athletics department generated just $120.7 million against $173.4 million in costs.

Corporate support has evaporated alongside private donations. Sponsorship, advertising, and licensing revenue plummeted from $18.3 million in fiscal 2023 to $10.6 million in fiscal 2025 — a 42 percent drop in two years, and down from $23.8 million in 2019.

UCLA left the Pac-12 chasing television revenue, and the conference delivered. Media and NCAA distributions surged 88 percent, from $41.2 million in fiscal 2023 to $77.3 million in fiscal 2025. Yet nearly every other revenue stream contracted.

Ticket sales dipped from $20.2 million to $18.3 million. Donations slid 14 percent. Sponsorship and licensing cratered. Meanwhile, the costs of Big Ten membership soared. Game expenses and travel jumped 36 percent to $33.1 million as teams crossed time zones to face Midwest opponents. Non-coaching staff payroll ballooned 35 percent to $31.8 million, growing five times faster than coaches’ salaries.

The contrast with conference peers is stark. Oregon, which joined the Big Ten a year after UCLA, finished fiscal 2025 with a $2.7 million surplus. Michigan, a long-standing member, generated $75.9 million in ticket sales — more than four times UCLA’s $18.3 million haul from the nation’s second-largest media market.

The UCLA athletics crisis extends beyond the balance sheet. The Rose Bowl Operating Company and the city of Pasadena sued the university in October 2025, alleging UCLA was maneuvering to move home games to SoFi Stadium in breach of its lease through 2044. The suit claims damages exceeding $1 billion, and a judge rejected UCLA’s bid to force arbitration in February. The parties are scheduled for a case management conference on Wednesday — two days after Jarmond’s firing.

In mid-August, Frenk reclaimed control of UCLA’s logo, ending a 66-year arrangement in which a student organisation held the commercial rights. Then, one week before Jarmond’s dismissal, CalMatters sued the university under the California Public Records Act seeking documents related to $20.5 million in NIL payments made during the 2025-26 academic year.

The financial pressures are only intensifying. UCLA’s next NCAA filing, due January 15, will be the first to include the $20.5 million House settlement obligation — direct revenue-sharing payments to as many as 229 athletes. The university also owes Cal a second $10 million installment for departing the Pac-12. Add Chesney’s contract, severance for former coach DeShaun Foster’s staff, and Jarmond’s approximately $5.9 million buyout, and the ledger grows heavier.

There are glimmers of a reset. Frenk installed Tim Harris, a UCLA alumnus and former Lakers president of business operations, as interim athletic director. Harris will work without salary with a mandate to “grow revenue through partnerships, licensing and other ventures.” The logo reclamation should unlock new commercial opportunities.

Jarmond’s legacy is complicated. He delivered nine NCAA championships in six years, including the women’s basketball national title in April, and engineered the seismic conference realignment. Yet he never balanced the budget, and the UCLA athletics crisis deepened on his watch.

Frenk has framed the moment as an opportunity to “lead the transformation of intercollegiate athletics” with a model “shaped by purpose — not by pressure.” The reality is more urgent. With donors retreating, expenses climbing, and legal battles multiplying, UCLA must prove it can steward its brand as effectively as it built it. The next athletic director will inherit a program with undeniable prestige — and a financial hole that keeps getting deeper.