This is not the kind of leadership change UCLA makes for cosmetic reasons. When an athletics department is carrying a significant financial deficit and has spent years living with one huge deficit after another, the message is clear enough: the old path is no longer good enough.
On Monday afternoon, Julio Frenk announced that Tim Harris will replace Martin Jarmond effective immediately, with UCLA saying it will eventually begin a national search for a permanent replacement. Harris, a former Lakers executive, will serve as athletic director and CEO of the athletic department on a pro bono basis, a detail that tells you plenty about the urgency and the seriousness of the moment.
A change driven by pressure, not comfort
Jarmond took over from Dan Guerrero in the summer of 2020 and then signed a five-year contract extension in May 2024. That made this move feel more abrupt on paper, but the bigger story is not about the calendar. It is about the reality underneath it. UCLA Athletics has run a deficit every fiscal year since Jarmond arrived, and the reported total tab since 2020 stands at $241.1 million. That is not a bump in the road. That is a pattern.
Frenk did not hide from that reality. He said UCLA Athletics currently carries a significant financial deficit and that its current path is not sustainable. He also framed the change as a “new path forward for UCLA Athletics,” adding that UCLA must have an athletics model that leads — not just keeps pace.
That is the key point here. This is not just about replacing one administrator with another. It is about deciding whether UCLA wants to keep reacting to the modern college sports economy or actually try to shape it. Frenk made that ambition explicit, saying UCLA should help lead the transformation of intercollegiate athletics and that its future must be shaped by purpose — not by pressure.
Why Tim Harris makes sense right now
Harris has been consulting for Frenk and reviewing athletics finances before taking the job, so this is not a blind hire pulled out of nowhere. The school is betting on someone who already understands the scale of the problem and has the background to attack it. Frenk pointed to Harris’s decades of experience creating partnerships and new sources of revenue, as well as his longstanding relationships throughout Los Angeles and globally.
That matters because the challenge facing Bruin athletics is not only financial, but structural. NIL and new models for student-athlete compensation have changed the terrain, and UCLA is clearly trying to build a department that can survive in that environment without letting the breadth of the program get hollowed out.
Frenk was also blunt about the personal side of the hire, saying Harris loves UCLA and cares deeply about its future, and he expressed gratitude that Harris would serve on a pro bono basis. In a moment like this, that combination of loyalty, experience and financial flexibility is not a small thing. It is the whole point.
The verdict
UCLA is not pretending this is business as usual. It is making a statement that the old model has not produced a sustainable future, and that the department needs a different kind of leadership immediately. Martin Jarmond had the job for more than four years, but the numbers were relentless, and the scale of the deficit has now forced a rethink.
Tim Harris inherits a difficult brief, but also a very clear one: stabilize the department, help create a model that can support itself, and prove UCLA can do more than simply absorb the cost of staying competitive. That is a serious ask. Then again, the situation is already serious.
