UCLA Fires Athletic Director Martin Jarmond After Years of Deficits and School Senate Warnings

UCLA fired athletic director Martin Jarmond on Monday, capping years of documented athletics deficits that the college’s college Academic Senate had been urgent Chancellor Julio Frenk to handle in writing since May 2025.

Frenk named Tim Harris, a former Los Angeles Lakers enterprise government, because the division’s new CEO and director of athletics in Jarmond’s place.

“UCLA Athletics currently carries a significant financial deficit, and its current path is not sustainable,” Frenk wrote in a letter to the college group, including that “now is the moment to build a model for Athletics that protects the breadth of our program, creates new opportunities for student-athletes and coaches, and supports itself through the revenue it generates.”

“I believe UCLA should help lead the transformation of intercollegiate athletics: our future must be shaped by purpose — not by pressure,” Frenk mentioned.

The deficit shouldn’t be a brand new downside. UCLA Athletics posted a $28 million shortfall in fiscal yr 2021-22, in line with a UC Regents interim report.

The Academic Senate’s Executive Board escalated the problem on to Chancellor Frenk in a May 2025 letter to Frenk and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt, warning that athletics “has run in the red for the past six years, accruing a staggering $219 million deficit,” and requesting “immediate assurance that campus will no longer subsidize the Athletic budget in any form.” Then-Senate chair Kathy Bawn wrote that Jarmond “has never operated UCLA Athletics with less than a $20 million annual deficit.”

The board adopted up 9 months later, in February 2026, reporting that the cumulative deficit had grown to $241.1 million over seven fiscal years, which Frenk had lined with extra campus subsidies, present Senate chair Megan McEvoy wrote. The Senate requested once more for a “full and transparent accounting of the budget situation… with the goal of restoring trust,” and repeated the request publicly in a June letter to college, urging “immediate, decisive, and substantive action.”

The division’s most up-to-date reported shortfall, in fiscal yr 2025, was $21.6 million, even after greater than $61 million in Big Ten media-rights income and $30 million in institutional help, Yahoo Sports reported.

Frenk thanked Jarmond “for his extraordinary service to UCLA and for his leadership over the past six years,” noting that “during his tenure, UCLA’s student-athletes continued to achieve at the highest levels, including three NCAA championship titles last year.”

Jarmond is owed the $6.5 million remaining on his contract, together with a $5.9 million base plus a retention bonus, ESPN reported. He had been UCLA’s athletic director since 2020, when he arrived from Boston College. The transfer comes 5 days earlier than the Bruins open their 2026 soccer season.

Jarmond’s tenure included UCLA’s August 2024 transfer from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten alongside rival USC, ESPN reported. He employed Chip Kelly as head coach, and Kelly left for Ohio State in 2024. His successor, DeShaun Foster, went 5-10 earlier than he was fired final yr following an 0-3 begin to the season, in line with ESPN.

Last September, Jarmond introduced a search committee, made up of sports activities executives together with Washington Commanders common supervisor Adam Peters and former Golden State Warriors common supervisor Bob Myers, that led to the December rent of Bob Chesney from James Madison, the place he went 21-5, ESPN reported. Chesney is about to teach his first recreation for the Bruins on Saturday in opposition to Cal.

Harris, a UCLA alumnus, spent 35 years with the Lakers, most just lately as president of enterprise operations, and can serve on a professional bono foundation whereas UCLA searches for a everlasting athletic director.

“Tim knows what it takes to grow a world-class sports organization and global brand, and he holds longstanding relationships throughout Los Angeles and globally,” Frenk mentioned. “He brings decades of experience in creating partnerships and new sources of revenue, along with a personal focus on centering the student-athlete experience.”

“Tim will develop a new strategy to grow revenue through partnerships, licensing and other ventures, while ensuring that our student-athletes and coaches have the required support to compete at the highest level,” Frenk mentioned.