CEO/AD Harris understands the nuances of how to build the season ticket base by eliminating the reasons for the fanbase to say 'no' and building back trusting relationships through service, from the students on up to longtime alums and donors, and the community at large.
Harris is an absolute astute business man who built the Lakers into a global brand with sellouts, year after year. UCLA is a global brand, despite all the failures of former chancellors, ADs and coaches. People's love for UCLA just has to be nurtured.
With Frenk championing Harris and Ches (and all the coaches), I am not sure it will take years to build back attendance.
One step is to create a Rose Bowl experience that is second to none, through a negotiated lease that is not only revenue driven but importantly treats the customer like the most valuable asset on the planet, because they are!
Then of course, price points, viable tiers to make season tickets affordable again for the majority, with options that provide a top notch end to end experience.
Fans want to feel cared for, and that they are being heard, supported, and connected to UCLA, the Athletic Dept and every team on campus. Harris, Frenk, and Coach Ches are next level in reaching and connecting with the heartbeat of the university and its community.
This Trio gets it, and they are proving it with their actions.
Things will turn around, and I think it will be sooner rather than later.
Great article. I agree with your analysis. There is another big problem though that was not mentioned in this story. A problem I know many of my fellow alums feel and it's not an easy fix. UCLA has turned off many of it's 80's and 90s alumni, who I would argue have the biggest ability to give to the university. Specifically I'm talking about legacy admits. I know so many of my successful die-hard fellow classmates that turned on their alma mater when the school chose not to admit their high achieving children. These kids are now at USC, Michigan, Cal, UW, Cal Poly, etc. and would have loved to follow in their parents foot steps. For some reason UCLA made a decision to count being a child of an alumni against them. Part of this is the diversity angle, where UCLA wanted to boost it's "first generation" ranking. They also somehow think its a good thing to say "over half of our in-state students attend tuition free" - what they are really saying is we enroll a lot of lower income students. Both of these obviously run counter to developing a large multi-generational fan-base of alumni with funds to support the university. You can have both, but for too long UCLA has focused on enrollment priorities that have damaged their alumni support. It's very unfortunate to have lost an entire generation of alumni. I know this failure is on our new chancellor's radar but it's not a quick fix.
Bring onions back for the hot dogs! Excellent analysis. Well, certainly sad it got to this point. There has definitely been some disconnect between all of the parties to a UCLA Saturday football game, including the school leadership, the program, students, alums, and the Bowl. There does seem to be some change in the local landscape that even those guys across town are seeing. So, maybe it will never return to the heights of the 80's and 90's here in So Cal, but creative business minds with the help of a winning team should be able to develop a plan to significantly improve the situation.
As a relative "modern grad" class of 2005, I never attended any games. Matter of fact, as a first generation college student, I had no clue that UCLA played at the Rose Bowl. So I can definitely understand William's angle to the lack thereof 2nd and 3rd generation support (ie; grandpa, dad, and grandson).
But I speak from my experience, the fact UCLA Football has been terrible, and the high cost of tickets/transportation/food/miscellaneous expenses of going to the stadium, made me not want to go when i was able to afford it. In 2019, I went back to UCLA for the post grad, and the general consensus that I got was that students were unbothered by athletics in general, and I am not talking about the other post grads/adults I was with, but in general. I am sure there are students who are sports fans, but I don't get the impression an average UCLA student is dying to go the stadium and watch a game. So more administrative engangement from UCLA with its student body can help build up that interest. Again as a first generation student at UCLA, I don't ever recall anyone telling me, "hey let's go watch a game."
Even now, the few friends of mine from my time at UCLA aren't much of a sports fans, let alone "football aficionados" so even trying to convince them to go watch a game is tough, regardless of how successful the team is or how capable they are in affording the "experience" at the Rose Bowl.
I will respectfully disagree with Tamara, in the fact that UCLA is a global brand in the same regards the Lakers are. The Lakers in this day and age of social media, do not need much of an introduction to who they are and what they do. Plus, professional basketball is extremely popular in some parts of the world, and the Lakers are the face of that popularity by league (NBA) design, geographic location, and star/player power. Unlike UCLA, yes I know there are alumnus all over the world, but I would not say UCLA is a "global brand" like the Lakers are, but more of an exclusive brand that has some global appeal in certain parts of the world. Hence, UCLA marketing to the masses a bit challenging because UCLA is not a mass production brand, but an exclusivity brand that you belong to and that is why admin needs to market to the students who are there now, to develop that next generation of Bruins who can attend games and sustain the program long term.
On a side note, I recall the first UCLA game I attended in 2005, it was March Madness, the first year of Ben Howland at UCLA and UCLA played Texas Tech in Arizona and I recall seeing most of the UCLA fans were older folks, I assume these were the folks of the good old days (60's and 70's) alumnus there at the arena, and I thought to myself, where are the young students, the recent grads.
I think from my perspective, there needs to be a lot of engagement from admin with all tiers of alumnus and current students to get people to come to the stadium and make all of us feel we are a part of something together.
CEO/AD Harris understands the nuances of how to build the season ticket base by eliminating the reasons for the fanbase to say 'no' and building back trusting relationships through service, from the students on up to longtime alums and donors, and the community at large.
Harris is an absolute astute business man who built the Lakers into a global brand with sellouts, year after year. UCLA is a global brand, despite all the failures of former chancellors, ADs and coaches. People's love for UCLA just has to be nurtured.
With Frenk championing Harris and Ches (and all the coaches), I am not sure it will take years to build back attendance.
One step is to create a Rose Bowl experience that is second to none, through a negotiated lease that is not only revenue driven but importantly treats the customer like the most valuable asset on the planet, because they are!
Then of course, price points, viable tiers to make season tickets affordable again for the majority, with options that provide a top notch end to end experience.
Fans want to feel cared for, and that they are being heard, supported, and connected to UCLA, the Athletic Dept and every team on campus. Harris, Frenk, and Coach Ches are next level in reaching and connecting with the heartbeat of the university and its community.
This Trio gets it, and they are proving it with their actions.
Things will turn around, and I think it will be sooner rather than later.
Spot on Joe!
Great article. I agree with your analysis. There is another big problem though that was not mentioned in this story. A problem I know many of my fellow alums feel and it's not an easy fix. UCLA has turned off many of it's 80's and 90s alumni, who I would argue have the biggest ability to give to the university. Specifically I'm talking about legacy admits. I know so many of my successful die-hard fellow classmates that turned on their alma mater when the school chose not to admit their high achieving children. These kids are now at USC, Michigan, Cal, UW, Cal Poly, etc. and would have loved to follow in their parents foot steps. For some reason UCLA made a decision to count being a child of an alumni against them. Part of this is the diversity angle, where UCLA wanted to boost it's "first generation" ranking. They also somehow think its a good thing to say "over half of our in-state students attend tuition free" - what they are really saying is we enroll a lot of lower income students. Both of these obviously run counter to developing a large multi-generational fan-base of alumni with funds to support the university. You can have both, but for too long UCLA has focused on enrollment priorities that have damaged their alumni support. It's very unfortunate to have lost an entire generation of alumni. I know this failure is on our new chancellor's radar but it's not a quick fix.
Bring onions back for the hot dogs! Excellent analysis. Well, certainly sad it got to this point. There has definitely been some disconnect between all of the parties to a UCLA Saturday football game, including the school leadership, the program, students, alums, and the Bowl. There does seem to be some change in the local landscape that even those guys across town are seeing. So, maybe it will never return to the heights of the 80's and 90's here in So Cal, but creative business minds with the help of a winning team should be able to develop a plan to significantly improve the situation.
As a relative "modern grad" class of 2005, I never attended any games. Matter of fact, as a first generation college student, I had no clue that UCLA played at the Rose Bowl. So I can definitely understand William's angle to the lack thereof 2nd and 3rd generation support (ie; grandpa, dad, and grandson).
But I speak from my experience, the fact UCLA Football has been terrible, and the high cost of tickets/transportation/food/miscellaneous expenses of going to the stadium, made me not want to go when i was able to afford it. In 2019, I went back to UCLA for the post grad, and the general consensus that I got was that students were unbothered by athletics in general, and I am not talking about the other post grads/adults I was with, but in general. I am sure there are students who are sports fans, but I don't get the impression an average UCLA student is dying to go the stadium and watch a game. So more administrative engangement from UCLA with its student body can help build up that interest. Again as a first generation student at UCLA, I don't ever recall anyone telling me, "hey let's go watch a game."
Even now, the few friends of mine from my time at UCLA aren't much of a sports fans, let alone "football aficionados" so even trying to convince them to go watch a game is tough, regardless of how successful the team is or how capable they are in affording the "experience" at the Rose Bowl.
I will respectfully disagree with Tamara, in the fact that UCLA is a global brand in the same regards the Lakers are. The Lakers in this day and age of social media, do not need much of an introduction to who they are and what they do. Plus, professional basketball is extremely popular in some parts of the world, and the Lakers are the face of that popularity by league (NBA) design, geographic location, and star/player power. Unlike UCLA, yes I know there are alumnus all over the world, but I would not say UCLA is a "global brand" like the Lakers are, but more of an exclusive brand that has some global appeal in certain parts of the world. Hence, UCLA marketing to the masses a bit challenging because UCLA is not a mass production brand, but an exclusivity brand that you belong to and that is why admin needs to market to the students who are there now, to develop that next generation of Bruins who can attend games and sustain the program long term.
On a side note, I recall the first UCLA game I attended in 2005, it was March Madness, the first year of Ben Howland at UCLA and UCLA played Texas Tech in Arizona and I recall seeing most of the UCLA fans were older folks, I assume these were the folks of the good old days (60's and 70's) alumnus there at the arena, and I thought to myself, where are the young students, the recent grads.
I think from my perspective, there needs to be a lot of engagement from admin with all tiers of alumnus and current students to get people to come to the stadium and make all of us feel we are a part of something together.