U.C.L.A.’s Football Wins Can’t Mask Its Financial Woes
The Bruins are having their best recent season on the field, yet attendance is falling rapidly. Free tickets haven’t helped, and the athletic department’s balance sheet has suffered.
By Billy Witz
Nov. 11, 2022
David Brownfield, who grew up a few bends in Sunset Boulevard from Westwood Village, could sing the U.C.L.A. fight song before he could shave. He graduated from U.C.L.A. in 1985 and has had football season tickets with friends ever since — even grudgingly paying what he calls the annual “extortion fee,” the $800 donation that was required for the privilege of buying his season tickets this year.
As a 60th birthday present to themselves, Brownfield and several pals traveled to Eugene, Ore., last month for the Bruins’ showdown with Oregon for first place in the Pac-12 Conference.
Even though the Ducks stomped U.C.L.A., Brownfield was gobsmacked by what he saw — the kinetic capacity crowd, which roared at each touchdown and during the ritualistic playing of “Shout” by the Isley Brothers at the start of the fourth quarter; the gleaming football facilities within walking distance of campus; the sense of community that enveloped the town on game day.
This, he thought, was a college football postcard come to life.
“It was an awesome experience,” Brownfield said. “But I walked away even more depressed because of what it’s like at our games.”
The loss to Oregon notwithstanding, U.C.L.A.’s long-awaited rebuild under Coach Chip Kelly has finally arrived this season. The Bruins (8-1) are off to their best start since 2005 and at the fringes of the chase for the four-team College Football Playoff at No. 12.
They have one of the nation’s most prolific offenses, led by a defender-hurdling quarterback, Dorian Thompson-Robinson; a tackle-busting running back, Zach Charbonnet; and a blink-and-you-miss-him dynamo at receiver, Kazmeir Allen.
This would seem to be enough to ignite a fan base.
And yet crowds have continued to be so barren at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., that U.C.L.A. has averaged only 36,241 fans in six home games, despite the university routinely giving away tens of thousands of tickets.
The embarrassment of so many empty seats has become so acute that six sections near each end zone are covered by powder-blue tarps, tightening the 91,136-person seating capacity by more than one-third.
The Bruins, who host Arizona (3-6) on Saturday night, may need a sellout against crosstown rival Southern California on Nov. 19 to avoid their lowest average attendance since moving to the venerable Rose Bowl 40 years ago.
“It feels like a high school environment to me,” Brownfield said. “You’re sitting there and sometimes it’s hard to feel like you’re playing big-time college football at all.”
This might be written off as another L.A. story — the umpteenth example of a sports enterprise not named “Lakers” or “Dodgers” struggling to generate buzz in an entertainment wonderland. (Exhibit A is the reigning Super Bowl champion Rams, whose home fans in Inglewood, Calif., are regularly drowned out by visitors — even during the playoffs.)
Or it might be yet another example of college football’s attendance swoon. Last year marked the seventh consecutive season attendance declined nationally.
But U.C.L.A.’s struggle for football relevance has had consequences far beyond crowd aesthetics.
As college athletics are increasingly driven by billions in football television rights, there may be no better example of how an athletic department’s health is tied to the fortunes of its football team.
Thus, even as U.C.L.A.’s storied men’s basketball team has returned to national prominence, and as a well rounded athletic program with 119 team national championships has continued its broad success, football’s shortcomings have torpedoed U.C.L.A.’s athletic finances. By the end of the 2021 fiscal year, its shortfall had exceeded $103.1 million, according to the school’s statement of revenues and expenses.
A $12 million buyout of the former football Coach Jim Mora’s contract, an apparel contract rift with Under Armour, and the cratering of football ticket revenue — set off by five consecutive losing seasons and exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic — sent the athletic department so deeply into the red that last summer’s offer to join the Big Ten Conference was viewed as a financial lifeline.
“U.C.L.A. and U.S.C. made decisions in their football program and the rest of their athletic programs that have led to deficits and scandals and performance on the field that probably made the decision to join the Big Ten more attractive,” Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff said in an interview in Los Angeles in July.
(U.S.C., which is also experiencing a football rebirth this season, had suffered from declining attendance before it fired Coach Clay Helton last season. In 2019, U.S.C. coaches and administrators were embroiled in the “Operation Varsity Blues” admissions scandal.)
The financial fall for U.C.L.A. has been as swift as it has been steep.
Just eight years ago, with a top-10 preseason ranking and a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback, Brett Hundley, the Bruins set an attendance record, averaging 76,650 and selling a school-record 46,617 season tickets. This year, season tickets have fallen to 23,077, less than half that high-water mark.
Ticket revenue for football has also dived — falling from just under $20 million in 2014 to $9.2 million for the 2019 season. No fans were permitted in the 2020 season because of the pandemic and revenue figures for last season have not been reported.
Donations to the athletic program have declined for two consecutive years, falling to $8.4 million for the 2021 fiscal year, which included the 2020 football season. In the 2019 fiscal year, donations were $16.4 million.
Efforts in recent years to fill empty seats by giving away huge blocks of free tickets haven’t worked. According to data released through a public records request, the school gave away an average of nearly 25,000 free tickets per game in 2019 and 2021. When U.C.L.A. drew 52,578 fans against Oklahoma in 2019, it gave away 39,202 tickets for that game. And last season, when the Bruins upset Louisiana State before 68,123, it gave away 29,279 tickets.
Free Tickets, Low Attendance
U.C.L.A. struggled to fill seats in 2021 despite giving away thousands of free tickets.
Those free tickets show that even though U.C.L.A.’s attendance in 2019 and 2021 are the lowest since moving to the Rose Bowl, the bottom line has been even worse: Tickets sold accounted for less than 80 percent of the announced attendance in both seasons.
The number of free tickets given away this season is not available, according to a university spokesman.
U.C.L.A. had its two smallest crowds ever at the Rose Bowl this season, and when photos began circulating on social media of a nearly abandoned stadium, one of the program’s most decorated alums, Troy Aikman, took to Twitter to call it “an embarrassment.”
Aikman continues to agitate for an on-campus stadium, though he knows it’s all but impossible. Still, he calls the Rose Bowl, where he won a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys and lost to U.S.C. in front of 100,741 fans, “a magical place.”
“It’s the greatest venue for a big game for football anywhere in the country,” Aikman said in a phone interview. “I wouldn’t trade my days there for anything. It’s just a hard place to fill.”
Attendance, and its impact on U.C.L.A.’s bottom line, is apparently a touchy subject in the athletic department. Martin Jarmond, the athletic director, has declined three interview requests from The New York Times in the last 15 months. In July, Jarmond declined an interview request to discuss the move to the Big Ten because an athletic department spokesman, Scott Markley, said he had already addressed the matter.
Jarmond, who makes $1.4 million per year, declined an interview request last week about football attendance because he was “not interested in rehashing old news,” Markley said in a email, adding, “perhaps we can make something happen later this winter.”
Markley also declined to make available athletic department marketing and ticketing officials for an interview.
Jarmond, who was hired as U.C.L.A.’s athletic director in May 2020, has been unable to reverse the slide he inherited from Dan Guerrero, who retired after 18 years running an athletic department that had balanced its books for 14 consecutive years until 2019.
Guerrero, though, had never been able to find a football coach who could make U.C.L.A. a consistent winner. For his final search, he enlisted Aikman as an adviser.
“We’ve had challenges over the years in getting candidates interested in the job,” Aikman said, ticking off reasons like high academic standards that hinder recruiting, salaries that did not account for the high cost of living, lack of an on-campus stadium and the bureaucracy of the sprawling University of California system. “Chip is the only one I can think of who has had other opportunities.”
Kelly, who is in his fifth season at U.C.L.A., has been painstakingly deliberate in building a winner. He shrugged as dozens of players left the program early on. And he did not waver in his insistence on recruiting earnest students and hard workers whom his coaches could develop into productive players, even if they were not highly rated by analysts.
His first season began with five consecutive losses. His second began with five losses in six games. Kelly’s flippant responses to questions about winning led some fans to an inevitable conclusion: If he doesn’t care, why should I?
Aikman, the longtime N.F.L. broadcaster who came to know Kelly when he was coaching the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, said he never discussed a timeline for a rebuild with Kelly, whose initial five-year contract was extended after last season. “It hasn’t been smooth. But it’s been exciting to see it all get put together,” Aikman said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had something to cheer about.”
Still, those first two seasons set the stage for U.C.L.A.’s financial calamity.
Then the pandemic struck. And Under Armour, in financial straits and not pleased with the early returns on a 15-year, $280 million apparel agreement — the richest deal in college sports — breached the contract, invoking a force majeure clause.
U.C.L.A. sued. Under Armour countersued.
In June, Under Armour agreed to pay U.C.L.A. $67 million — about half of what it would have paid over the remainder of the contract — to settle the claims. That erased a sizable chunk of U.C.L.A.’s deficit.
But the subsequent six-year deal that Jarmond finalized with Nike pays the university only $500,000 a year in cash, more than $10 million less per year than the Under Armour agreement. (Nike will provide about $7 million per year in athletic gear, about the same as the Under Armour agreement.)
That won’t put much of a dent in the deficit. And higher football ticket revenues are difficult to envision.
As iconic and idyllic as the Rose Bowl is, set in a ravine at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains, its marriage with U.C.L.A. has been one of necessity.
U.C.L.A., as it struggled to escape the shadow of U.S.C. in the 1970s, grew tired of playing at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Trojans’ home field across the street from the U.S.C. campus, just south of downtown Los Angeles. But there were few options and U.C.L.A. could never muster the political will to fight Bel-Air homeowners to build an on-campus stadium. So in 1982 it called the Rose Bowl home.
Meanwhile, the Rose Bowl needed U.C.L.A. to remain viable — the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl stadiums eventually fell to the wrecking ball when their tenants left for new buildings. After efforts to land an N.F.L. team fizzled, the Rose Bowl underwent an approximately $200 million renovation a decade ago that is being paid for largely by revenue generated by U.C.L.A., which is under a contract to play at the stadium through 2042.
That the Rose Bowl is a grueling 27-mile drive from campus and the winding lanes leading into the Arroyo Seco are clogged with traffic has long been part of the bargain.
So, too, is seating that is comfortable only for Lilliputians, interminable concession lines and culinary options that struggle to rise above sustenance. Kickoff times are uncertain and inconvenient thanks to television dictates. Saturday’s Arizona game, for example, was announced as a 7:30 p.m. Pacific start just six days earlier and the season opener was played at 11:30 a.m. under 100-degree temperatures.
Unappealing opponents do not help — the Bruins’ nonconference home games this season were against Bowling Green, Alabama State and South Alabama. Next season is no more attractive: Coastal Carolina and North Carolina Central are the nonconference opponents scheduled to visit the Rose Bowl.
“We found ourselves going to less and less games, and paying for the entire season package on top of making a donation to the Wooden fund,” said David Senensieb, an alumnus who dropped his season tickets last year after 35 seasons. “With the team not doing well, it made it easy to say, ‘Let’s just buy tickets’ to the games we wanted to go to.’ We’re always able to find tickets.”
Over the years, U.C.L.A.’s marketing department has tried to retain fans like Senensieb and cultivate interest. One year, blue roses were sent to season-ticket holders. Another year, fans were sent a faux lottery ticket, which they could scratch off for a complimentary ticket to a particular game. In 2019, fans received robocalls with a recording from Aikman urging them to support the team.
It has provided free tickets to elementary schools, veterans organizations and charities over the years, hoping they will come back.
But if U.C.L.A. beats Arizona on Saturday night, it will mark only the fifth time since 1998 that the Bruins will have won nine games or more.
“It’s easier to keep somebody than it is to find somebody new,” said Scott Mitchell, the longtime marketing director who retired before the 2020 season. “There’s been a long time of not meeting the perception of what a U.C.L.A. fan would want — an exciting team, a fun team, a winning team.”
Now that the Bruins have that, fans may be gingerly getting back on the bandwagon, which — just like the Rose Bowl itself — has plenty of good seats available.
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