UCLA terminated athletic director Martin Jarmond on Thursday, four days before new football head coach Bob Chesney officially begins work in Westwood. The university cited a $102 million accumulated operating deficit during Jarmond's four-year tenure, a figure that includes $28 million in red ink for fiscal 2024 alone. Jarmond's deal paid $1.9 million annually through 2027; UCLA will owe the balance.
The deficit arithmetic is straightforward. UCLA joined the Big Ten in August 2024, collecting a $52 million media-rights distribution in year one versus $7 million from the Pac-12 in its final season. But operating expenses climbed faster: charter-flight requirements for East Coast trips added $8 million annually, and Jarmond green-lit facility upgrades worth $47 million in anticipation of Big Ten revenues that arrived on schedule but without corresponding cost discipline. The department now projects $167 million in expenses against $139 million in revenue for fiscal 2025, assuming no corrections.
Chesney, hired in December at $5.2 million per year from Holy Cross, inherits a support structure he did not build. His five-assistant package—offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special-teams coach, and two analysts—was negotiated by Jarmond and interim chancellor Darnell Hunt before Jarmond's exit. Chesney's agent told three Power Four ADs in January that UCLA's recruiting budget was "Big Ten in name only," a reference to the $4.1 million allocated for official visits and evaluation travel, roughly 40 percent below Michigan's equivalent line. Chesney's staff will begin work Monday without knowing who controls those allocations or whether the numbers move.
The financial miss sits inside a broader campus accounting problem. UCLA's central administration advanced $34 million to athletics in fiscal 2023 and another $31 million in fiscal 2024 to cover shortfalls Jarmond attributed to "transition costs." Campus CFO Brad Erickson told the UC Board of Regents in November that those advances were structured as loans, not gifts, and carried an implied 5.2 percent interest rate tied to the university's cost of capital. Jarmond's projections assumed Big Ten revenue growth would retire the debt by 2027; Erickson's office now models repayment in 2031 at the earliest, assuming athletics holds expenses flat in nominal terms.
Jarmond's term produced visible wins. He hired Chesney after a search that included five sitting Power Four coordinators, extended basketball coach Mick Cronin through 2028 at $4.7 million per year, and negotiated a $7.8 million annual apparel deal with Under Armour that begins in July 2025. Ticket revenue for football and basketball rose 19 percent year-over-year in his final season, driven by Big Ten opponent travel and a renovated Rose Bowl club section that added 1,840 premium seats at an average $680 per game. But those wins did not offset operating losses or the reputational cost of presenting conference partners with financials that suggested UCLA had misjudged the Big Ten economic model.
The coaching situation is cleanest for Cronin, whose basketball program runs a $2.1 million operating surplus and whose seat is secure through at least two more recruiting cycles. Chesney's position is less clear. His contract includes performance incentives worth up to $1.3 million for bowl eligibility and Academic Progress Rate benchmarks, but those payments come from the general athletic fund, not ring-fenced football revenue. If UCLA's next AD decides football is overstaffed relative to budget, Chesney will negotiate from a disadvantaged position: he has no operating history with the department's senior leadership, and his agent cannot credibly argue that Chesney inherited financial commitments he endorsed.
UCLA will begin an AD search within two weeks, according to a person familiar with the timeline. The finalist pool will likely include sitting Power Four senior associate ADs with CFO backgrounds, a signal that campus leadership wants budget credibility before brand vision. The search firm is Turnkey Search, which placed Jarmond in 2020 and placed Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard in 2005; Pollard's name has circulated in Los Angeles donor calls as a model profile, though he has not been contacted and Iowa State pays $1.05 million versus UCLA's $1.9 million base.
Chesney begins work Monday with a roster that returns 14 starters and a recruiting class ranked 31st nationally by On3. His offensive coordinator, Tavita Pritchard, held the same role at BYU through 2023 and has existing West Coast recruiting pipelines. The first game is August 30 against Hawaii, giving Chesney 174 days to install a system without clarity on who signs his travel budgets or whether his five-assistant package remains funded at the levels Jarmond promised.
The Big Ten's next media-rights negotiation begins in 2029. UCLA's financial credibility with conference partners—and its ability to argue for a larger share of incremental revenue—depends on demonstrating operating discipline before that window opens. Jarmond's exit suggests the university believes that credibility was damaged enough to warrant leadership change despite the proximity to Chesney's start date and the visibility of the deficit numbers.
The takeaway
UCLA prioritized budget credibility over continuity; Chesney's first operating year will be shaped by an AD he never met.
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