How Should UCLA Athletics Eliminate Its Growing Budget Problem?

The UCLA Athletics Department ran a $19M Deficit last school year and this year wasn't looking much better. That was before everything was cancelled.

(Photo credit: Don Liebig/UCLA Athletics)

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Back in January, I wrote about the $19M budget deficit that the UCLA Athletics Department ran for the 2018-19 school year as well as the expected $17M deficit the department expected to run this year.

That was before COVID-19 shut down everything.

That means that all revenue has been lost for the remainder of 2019-20. Meanwhile, the department is still paying everyone’s salaries. To be sure, there are cuts — some of them big like travel — that will be reduced as a result of not needing to send student-athletes anywhere but, with a massive deficit from last year and an almost equally large one projected for this year, one can’t help but wonder how the department plans to make that up.

Old Dominion and Cincinnati have found one way to solve their budgetary issues. Both schools are eliminating programs. At Old Dominion, they have already cut the wrestling program while Cincinnati has announced that they will cut their men’s soccer program.

Other schools are sure to follow.

Pete Thamel has an article on Yahoo Sports which looks at the possibility of schools cutting “Olympic sports.” To be clear, when I refer to “Olympic sports,” I’m referencing any of the non-revenue generating sports. In other words, that includes every sport which doesn’t actually make money for an athletic department. That could range from women’s basketball to baseball to water polo. Essentially, it’s any sport which is not football or men’s basketball.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter what the sport is. Cutting sports should be the absolute last resort for balancing the budget in UCLA’s current budget mess.

It was bad enough when men’s gymnastics and men’s swimming were cut in the back in the mid-90s. After all, the men’s gymnastics program was more prestigious at that time than the women’s team after the men’s team dominated the 1984 Olympics. That didn’t save it from the budgetary axe.

Where would the department start if it were going to start cutting programs to save money now?

You can pretty much rule out any women’s program. That’s because the women’s teams are required under Title IX and there are more women’s sports than men’s sports at UCLA because of the size of the football program.

So, where does that leave things?

Well, it should leave no programs on the chopping block. That’s because the student-athletes shouldn’t have to pay the price for a top-heavy athletic department. Dan Guerrero made over $1.8 million in 2018. Ponder that for a moment.

Josh Rebholz took home more than $280,000 in 2018. Dr. Christina Rivera, the senior women’s administrator, made more than $200K as did the department’s chief financial office Christopher Iacoi. Senior Associate Athletic Director for Communications Shana Wilson earned nearly $185K in 2018.

Associate Athletic Director Chris Carlson made nearly $200K that year while Gavin Crew earned more than $135K.

UCLA baseball head coach John Savage made more than $950K in 2018 which means he was better made than ten managers in major league baseball including New York Mets manager Mickey Callaway and former Bruin Torey Lovello who managed the Arizona D-Backs that year.

And, no discussion of athletic department salaries can go without mentioning that Chip Kelly was paid nearly $3.4 million in 2018 for three wins.

With the budget deficits piling up and no end in site due to COVID-19, it makes more sense to impose salary cuts across the board than it does to start cutting Olympic sports. Everyone mentioned above should be making enough money to survive a modest 10% salary cut. And, even coaches who are under contract should consider volunteering to take a 10%, or more in the case of Chip Kelly, pay cut as they recognize that one or more of their fellow head coaches could lose their job entirely if sacrifices aren’t made.

But cutting any non-revenue sport would be the absolute worst way for the department to go about solving their budgetary woes. Why? Because it would hurt the people who make the least money in the athletic department the most.

I’m talking about the student-athletes.

Former Editor of Land Grant Holyland Matt Brown writes in his Extra Points newsletter:

Football coaches have seen their salaries absolutely explode. There are college baseball managers who now make more than their professional counterparts. The number of lawyers, vendors, administrators, and assistant coach types, even at schools of more modest means, has grown and grown. The players got a better snack bar.

It is entirely possible that cuts to sports, or cuts to student aid, are unavoidable, especially if broadcast revenue is interrupted, or university enrollment plummets. But it ought to be the absolute last thing any school does.

He’s right on that. Why would a school want to balance its budget by harming educational opportunities for students when a little pain at the top which can be absorbed a lot easier than having a scholarship or partial scholarship wiped out?

There’s little doubt that the UCLA Athletic Department will have to find a way to either quickly grow its revenue which is unlikely as sports venues sit empty and students remain off campus or it will need to start tightening its budget equally quickly.

Will Dan Guerrero deal with this before he retires in June? Personally, I’m doubtful. I fully expect him to just head off into retirement without so much as a possible solution to the department budget issues identified.

Instead, he will probably play a game of “Kick the $40 million Can” with the next Athletic Director who will almost certainly make substantially less (read: maybe half as much or more) than Guerrero.

But if the new AD is making that much less than the current AD wouldn’t it make sense to ask everyone making more than $100,000 per year in the department to take a 10% pay cut in order to salvage the opportunities for the next generation of UCLA student-athletes?

The alternative is the continued evaporation of more of UCLA’s excellence in athletics and haven’t we already seen enough of that under Guerrero’s failed leadership?

Go Bruins!!!

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Note: An attempt was made to contact UCLA Athletics to learn about the department’s plans to fix the budget. No response has been received at this time. This article will be updated should one be received.

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