In Reply to: Bolch UNLOADS on Jarmond posted by BabyBear on October 13, 2025 at 20:36:14
Early on, I posted how Jarmond was a self promoting publicity hound with a history of taking undeserved credit for his "accomplishments". Here's a post I wrote in 2021:
College sports are a big business. We all know that. An athletic director's job is to run that business and make it profitable or at least minimize losses, especially at UCLA where the department is running a huge deficit ($21.7 million in 2020). What we don't need is a fanboy cheerleader publicity hound, who seems insecure in his job. Our greatest director, J.D. Morgan, was dubbed J.D. Boredom by the great Jim Healy due to his dour personality. How many A.D.'s of the most successful programs can you name? Most likely few if any. Publicity is not in their job description. They let the success of their programs speak for itself. How does posting self promoting videos of him helping students move into the dorms or celebrating a victory by the women's volleyball team improve the athletic program? One clue to Jarmond's psyche is that he is often described as a former Division I basketball player who played in the NCAA tournament. The truth is that he was a seldom used walkon who made three baskets in his entire career (out of 20 shots) and got in the last minute of a blowout NCAA loss. Anyone with a modicum of modesty would downplay that description, but he never does.
So what has Jarmond done so far?
* Increased football attendance by giving away thousands of tickets for the LSU and Oregon games to students. Those were fan pleasing moves, but were they good business? Had they sold a mere fraction of those tickets at regular prices they would have made more money. (Don't expect those students to pay full prices any time soon, if ever.) A simpler way to increase attendance is just to have a winning team. Other gameday Rose Bowl improvements he might have initiated are mere window dressing.
* He made the deal with Jordan Brand/Nike. The contract with Nike is certainly popular with fans and athletes, but it is not known how much credit Jarmond deserves in the negotiations. Did he seek out the company or did they just see an oppportunity and jump into the void at a bargain price in a major media market? Unlike the UA deal, the vast majority of the school's revenue is in product and not in cash. As one sports business website surmised, Nike swept in to pick up one of the most iconic brands in college sports history for pennies on the dollar — knowing full and well that UCLA is banking on offsetting costs through legal recourse with Under Armour.
* Brought College GameDay to Westwood. Not exactly. According to Drew Gallagher, the show's coordinating producer, “He definitely wanted to make sure that UCLA was on ‘GameDay’s radar which certainly they were anyway . . ." In fact, there were no other matchups involving highly rated teams that weekend other than Oklahoma State at Iowa State and they had already been there earlier in the season, so we got it sort of by default.
The department's revenue is directly and indirectly based on the success of the football program. And that brings us to the Jarmond's first big decisions that will determine his real value. Will he fire Chip and if so, who will he get to replace him? That decision will take great insight and negotiating skill. If he needs a lot of input from outside sources, whose opinion will he trust the most? A bad decision will waste another five years.
So let's wait for a few more months to truly evaluate Jarmond. Popularity based on personality isn't what we need. I'm sure many fans will disagree with this assessment because he's trying so hard to please them. Staying in the background and making good business decisions, not leading cheers is what we need. He'd make a great publicity or marketing director, but the jury is is still out out on how effective an athetic director he is. Let's wait until he has to make those tough decisions that shape the future of the UCLA athletic program.