High hopes in the Big Ten
Sports have recently become an even bigger part of UCLA’s budget and identity with UCLA's entry into the Big Ten sports conference. Now, can the university compete on that level and can it bring in the money that leaders expect?
UCLA football ended 14th out of 18 teams in its first season in the Big Ten. Frenk knows about college sports: In his last job as president of University of Miami, he managed high expectations of the legendary Hurricanes’ football program.
In some states that kind of record by a university football program could lead to pressure on a university’s president from as high up as the governor’s office.
“I don't see Gavin Newsom applying pressure on the chancellor at UCLA to get their athletic program to be more successful,” said Dennis Farrell, commissioner of the Big West Conference for 28 years until 2019.
But that doesn’t mean Frenk won’t step in to hold athletic administrators accountable, Farrell said, if UCLA football continues to have losing seasons like this inaugural one.
“The pressure upon a chancellor at a University of California system school probably comes from alumni and boosters. Certainly the media plays a factor in that as well,” Farrell said.