UCLA has not finished addressing the fallout from UCLA’s move to the Big Ten that has sparked a national uproar and angered the UCLA’s powerful Board of Regents.
The governors, who met in San Diego on Thursday, briefly discussed a proposal to bar the university’s president from delegating such authority if the proposed athletics deal on the UCSD campus would cause a sister campus to have a “material negative financial impact” — defined as 10% or more. from the operating revenue of the respective sports division. The ban on delegating authority to universities would also apply if the proposed deal would raise an “important question” for university policy or create a “substantial risk of reputational damage to universities”.
Board Chairman Richard Lieb emphasized that the proposal targets future campus actions. But it was caused by widespread concerns among governors about the financial impact of UC’s decision to leave Pac 12 in 2024 on UC Berkeley.
The Westwood campus will get a full share of the 10 new media rights package valued at more than $1 billion per season, expected to be several times that of the Pac-12 deal under negotiation. But UC Berkeley is bracing for a multimillion-dollar loss in media revenue under a new television contract with the Pac-12 conference slashed by the departure of UCLA and USC.
The board took no action on Thursday, deciding to refer the matter to the Retail Governance Committee at an upcoming meeting. Nor did the governors respond to the big question: whether they would try to cancel the controversial deal. Lieb said he did not want to give a timeline as to when those decisions would be made because “there is still key information we don’t know,” refusing to be more specific.
Lieb told The Times in August that he and “a handful” of governors were informed of UC’s intention to leave Pac-12 shortly before the decision was announced. This lack of notification of such a major issue upset several governors — including Governor Gavin Newsom, an ex officio board member. But UCLA President Michael F. Drake said Thursday that UCLA officials have followed all policies, including those that allow the university’s president to delegate authority to chancellors to enforce their own contracts, including intercollegiate athletic agreements.
“What we did was follow the policies that were in place at the time, and I think that’s the way we do things,” Drake said during brief remarks after Thursday’s meeting. “We will have a chance to review things as we go forward, but that was the decision at the time.”
Some judges said Drake should be able to come up with a plan to support Berkeley and ensure the welfare of the athletes to avoid the board of directors canceling the deal.
Governor Gavin Newsom of UCLA asked her to explain how Pac 12’s exit from the Big Ten would benefit all athletes and honor her relationship with UC Berkeley. Several judges also questioned how the move would affect the health, well-being and academic performance of athletes who spend more time on the road to travel to the Big Ten Games.
Pac-12 commissioner George Klyavkov expressed similar concerns in a letter sent to UCLA governors at their request, according to a person familiar with the letter but not authorized to discuss it publicly.
In response to the judges’ plea for more details about the impact of UCLA’s move to the Big Ten, Kliavkoff wrote in a letter first reported by the New York Times that the school’s increased revenue would be offset by higher salaries for coaches and administrators required to stay in competition, plus costs Conference travel that would nearly triple, to $23.7 million annually.
Kliavkoff also highlighted concerns about heavy travel demands on UCLA athletes playing in a coast-to-coast conference, writing that they would double the time they spend in planes and almost half the time on buses, taking a mental and physical toll while also hampering academic performance.
Kliavkoff went above and beyond just providing the numbers, however, as he asked the governors to intervene to prevent UCLA’s move to the Big Ten. Kliavkoff wrote: “For current and future generations of UCSD student-athletes, we strongly support the decision of the UC Board of Regents to reverse the decision made by UCLA.”
Lieb said the letter “did not change the rules of the game because a lot of information was already there.” But he said he was personally concerned about some of the points raised, such as the losses that athletes would incur due to heavy travel, and questioned why sports other than football and basketball could not be held at the regional level.
“Why do you go all the way across the country to play in a stadium where no one is watching and no parents can come?” He said. “That’s stupid.”
George Blumenthal, who served as UC Santa Cruz chancellor for 13 years until 2019, said UCLA clearly had the power to seal the deal by the rules at the time, and umpires delving into the athletes’ travel schedules seemed to be stinging. micromanagement to the extreme.
But he said it was a “legitimate issue” for the governors to try to mitigate damage to a UCLA campus through other actions.
said Blumenthal, who now heads the Graduate Education Center at UC Berkeley.
After announcing the departure of UCLA along with USC in late June, Bruins’ sporting director Martin Jarmond said the move would help secure the future of a heavily indebted division while avoiding the possibility of excluding Olympic sports teams.
Some of the new UCLA revenue can be transferred to Cal if the UCLA governors are forced to support the sister school’s athletic section as a penalty for leaving the Golden Bears in a dwindling Pac-12. At the University of California governors meeting last month on the University of California campus, it was estimated that leaving the two Los Angeles schools would cost the Pac-12 nearly $13 million in lost media rights revenue annually.
Playing in the Big Ten will come with more than financial benefits, including an expanded recruiting base and fortified branding that offers athletes an additional name, image and opportunities for likeness amid the changing sports landscape, Jarmond and UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said at the time their school announced their conference switch. quickly.
from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/the-ucla-campus-faces-a-decline-in-power-after-uclas-move-to-the-big-ten/
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