Dan Guerrero's Parting Gift Was a $40.6M Deficit

USA Today is reporting the UCLA Athletic Department ran a $21.7M deficit for the 2019-2020 school year.

A large part, pun intended, of Dan Guerrero’s legacy as UCLA Athletic Director is the $40.6 million debt he left the Athletic Department with. (Photo Credit: Joe Piechowski)

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There are now more than 40 million reasons why Dan Guerrero was a terrible athletic director.

Yesterday, USA Today broke the story that Guerrero’s Athletic Department ran a $21.7 million deficit for the 2019-2020 school year. That brings the deficit for Guerrero’s final two years at the helm to over $40 million. The school did not indicate how the 2019-2020 deficit was covered, but it is expected that the school issued another low interest loan from the main campus.

Interestingly, UC Berkeley, whose athletic department has amassed a revenue shortfall of almost $85 million over four years, didn’t require a loan. Instead, the university just paid the bill.

One area where UCLA lost significant revenue was in football ticket revenue which was down more than $3.2 million, or almost the amount of money the school paid to Chip Kelly to coach in 2019. That’s what happens when the football team only wins seven games in two seasons.

Here’s a novel concept: tie the head coach’s pay to football ticket revenue, at least in part. If UCLA’s football ticket revenue increases, the coach makes more money. If it drops, the coach gets paid less. It’s called an incentive.

It doesn’t need to be completely tied to revenue, but tying any part of the head coach’s pay to actually putting fans in the seats would be a good start.

In the meantime, Martin Jarmond now has to figure out a way to generate an extra $40 million in revenue that the “good financial manager” left behind.

This $40 million in debt will likely be considered a significant part of Dan Guerrero’s legacy.

And, it should put to rest any argument that he was a good financial manager.


Go Bruins.

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