Fresno State is finalizing a new contract with athletic director Garrett Klassy, who is in the third and final guaranteed year of the five-year deal that he signed in 2024 when hired to lead the Bulldogs’ sports programs.

“I think he’s done an incredible job,” university president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval said. “He has really brought a new energy in terms of fundraising and in terms of new revenue. He has done a lot with the stadium, as well, researching what to do with the stadium. He has just brought athletics to a new level of excellence.”

Klassy declined comment until the contract has been executed.

The new deal, according to a university source, will be for five years. The deal Klassy signed in 2024 was worth $410,000 a year, with 88% of that salary paid by the university and the remainder by its Athletic Corporation.

Klassy has had an interesting first two years at Fresno State, which began even before his official start date at the university when famed football coach Jeff Tedford retired due to ongoing health issues just months before the start of the 2024 season.

Charged with mining new and maximizing existing revenue sources as the Bulldogs move into the Pac-12 Conference, Klassy took a bold swing in going with the local startup Bulldog Sports Enterprises to handle athletics multimedia rights, bypassing guaranteed revenue with national players in that space including Learfield. Fresno State and Learfield had been multimedia partners for more than 15 years on sponsorship deals, stadium signage, licensing and local broadcast rights before that contract expired at the end of June.

The athletics department rebranded its fundraising efforts and the past two years has set school records for contributions, bringing in $13.8 million in 2026 and $11.2 million before that.

The Bulldogs’ athletics director also has made solid coaching hires including Matt Entz in football and Charlotte Morgan in softball. And, as Jiménez-Sandoval said, he has taken on a behemoth task in how to best address an aged football stadium that lacks premium seating options that drive ticket revenue.

A market analysis and feasibility study on a potential renovation, which could provide a direction for what comes next at Valley Children’s Stadium, was conducted in June by Legends CSL

“Garrett has wholeheartedly dedicated himself in a very intentional way to Fresno State,” Jiménez-Sandoval said. “There are a lot of challenges in athletics. He is not daunted by that. He takes them head on. He has an impeccable work ethic, and he has a lot of really creative ideas on how to move ahead.”

Fresno State did not win a team championship in its final year in the Mountain West Conference, which could be a byproduct of revenue challenges the Bulldogs are facing with the move to the Pac-12 and a college athletics landscape that includes revenue-sharing with student-athletes and Name Image and Likeness.

In the sports required for Pac-12 membership, Fresno State in 2025 ranked last among the eight football-playing members in the conference in football spending, according to revenue and expense reports the schools filed with the NCAA. It also was ranked just seventh in basketball, ninth and last in women’s basketball and third in women’s volleyball when including Gonzaga, a full conference member that does not field a football program.

Revenue generation remains the charge for Klassy, going forward.

Bulldog Sports Enterprises in its first six weeks did land new revenue in a multi-brand sponsorship deal with The Wonderful Company; all 18 sports programs will wear patches on jerseys and apparel bearing logos for Wonderful pistachios, Wonderful Halos or Pom Wonderful.

The field at Valley Children’s Stadium will also include Wonderful Pistachios branding.

Terms of that deal have not been disclosed, but similar Group of Six conference deals have run to more than $1 million per year. UNLV signed a deal reportedly worth $11 million over five years with Acesso Biologics, a Las Vegas-based regenerative medicine company.

Wyoming has a five-year, $4.5 million sponsorship agreement with Tallgrass, an energy infrastructure company. Memphis signed a jersey patch deal with FedEx, a major contributor to its athletics department through the years. Terms of that deal have not been disclosed.

South Florida, New Mexico State and Louisiana Monroe are other Group of Six schools that have announced commercial jersey patch deals.

Under terms of the contract between Fresno State and BSE, the school gets 90% of the revenue from marquee assets including jersey patches and football field branding and 80% from its non-marquee assets.

Bulldog Sports Enterprises also partnered with Valley Wide Beverages for exclusive marketing and pouring rights for beer, ready to drink and hard seltzer products.

This story was originally published August 13, 2026 at 3:43 PM.