{"id":449755,"date":"2026-09-01T08:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T08:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/449755\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T08:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T08:18:12","slug":"ucla-ousts-athletic-director-martin-jarmond-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/449755\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA ousts athletic director Martin Jarmond \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

UCLA fired athletic director\u00a0Martin Jarmond<\/a>\u00a0on Monday and replaced him with Tim Harris, the former longtime president of business operations for the Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\n

The shake-up was announced in a letter from Chancellor Julio Frenk to the university community. Frenk described it as a \u201cnew path forward for UCLA Athletics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarmond, who had the job for six years, leaves immediately. The Bruins won three NCAA championships last season, including the first by the women’s basketball team.<\/p>\n

Harris, 64, will have the title of CEO and athletic director and work on a pro bono basis, Frenk wrote. Harris graduated from UCLA in 1989 with a sociology degree and played goalkeeper for the men’s soccer team while in Westwood.<\/p>\n

Harris spent over 35 years with the Lakers and\u00a0left the NBA franchise<\/a>\u00a0in February, four months after the Buss family sold it to Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter. Harris was among Lakers governor Jeanie Buss’ inner circle who received a major financial bonus after the sale.\u00a0The team was recently sold again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jarmond, 46, replaced Dan Guerrero as AD in 2020. He signed a five-year contract extension in May 2024. During his tenure, the athletic department has run yearly deficits for seven consecutive years, totaling $241 million in shortfalls.<\/p>\n

UCLA joined the Big Ten Conference two years ago, raking in millions of dollars in media rights fees while also facing increased travel expenses. Its deficit was reduced to $21.6 million for the 2025 fiscal year. The university has repeatedly bailed out the athletic department to keep it afloat.<\/p>\n

Frenk cited the financial situation as a reason for the change.<\/p>\n

\u201cUCLA Athletics currently carries a significant financial debt, and its current path is not sustainable,\u201d Frenk wrote. \u201cNow 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frenk mentioned the rapid transformation of college sports in recent years, propelled by name, image and likeness deals that allow athletes to earn money.<\/p>\n

\u201cUCLA must have an athletics model that leads \u2014 not just keeps pace,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Jarmond won’t be around to see the debut of his last major coaching hire.\u00a0Bob Chesney<\/a>\u00a0arrived in early December from James Madison to reinvigorate UCLA’s moribund football program. The Bruins open the season at California on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCLA fired athletic director\u00a0Martin Jarmond\u00a0on Monday and replaced him with Tim Harris, the former longtime president of business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,127,1092],"class_list":["post-449755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-sports","tag-ucla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}