UCLA’s Big Ten debut
In its final Pac-12 season, UCLA received less than $20 million from the league’s media rights package. In its first Big Ten season, UCLA collected $61.3 million from media rights, the same figure reported by most of the Big Ten’s vested members. UCLA and USC entered the Big Ten as full partners, while Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland all had to wait six years to gain that status. Washington and Oregon will get half-shares of the Big Ten’s regular-season media rights package until 2030.
“Just being in the Big Ten and having the revenues, it just helps you compete at the level that we expect to compete at,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond told The Athletic last summer.
But UCLA athletics remains significantly in the red: It reported a $21.6 million deficit for fiscal year 2025. That’s down from its $51.9 million loss in fiscal 2024, but UCLA has compiled and reported $222.2 million in athletics losses over the past six years.
Among the Big Ten’s 16 public universities, UCLA ranked fourth from the bottom in reported athletic revenue at $151.8 million. It took in $31.6 million in student fees and direct institutional support. Although $10 million of that support was transferred back, the university continues to cover the athletic department’s losses.