11-10-2025, 12:46 AM
Are you suggesting that Stanford should aspire to be like Cal? I think you might be making my point for me.
Seriously though, since I don’t root for them, I had never bothered looking at Cal’s AD financial situation, though I was vaguely aware that it was troubled. In a word, yikes. Because of the stadium renovation, it was in trouble before the move to the ACC, the only thing that is saving it from utter collapse now is the agreement they have with UCLA to transfer some of the Big Ten revenue to Cal. In the mid-term, I think most people expect that they will need a bailout of the stadium financing, which is weighing them down like an albatross. Cal is the single most indebted collegiate athletics department, and nobody else is within $100 million. Total Cal AD debt is $436 million dollars.
In 2024, the Cal AD reported a $29.7 million operating shortfall, with revenues of approximately $119.6 million and expenses of nearly $149.3 million, and that is after $37.2 million in direct support from the central campus. Without it, the Cal AD basically funds just 55% of its expenses.
I don’t know about the state of campus politics at Cal, or of the University’s financial picture as a whole, though I suspect it is just as dire as Stanford’s, though about 40% of UC’s budget (across all 10 campuses) comes from the state government, so it might be a bit more insulated, or a bit more exposed to the state’s financial condition. Right now, the state is wrestling with a fairly large budget deficit, so I think this will cascade to the UC system, and thus to Berkeley and UCLA. Consequently, I do wonder how tenable the current situation is for the Cal athletic department.
Maybe others with more knowledge of the UC system can chime in; I think at least one person here is or was on faculty (I was, almost 10 years ago, but at a UC with no athletics or undergraduates for that matter).
BC
Seriously though, since I don’t root for them, I had never bothered looking at Cal’s AD financial situation, though I was vaguely aware that it was troubled. In a word, yikes. Because of the stadium renovation, it was in trouble before the move to the ACC, the only thing that is saving it from utter collapse now is the agreement they have with UCLA to transfer some of the Big Ten revenue to Cal. In the mid-term, I think most people expect that they will need a bailout of the stadium financing, which is weighing them down like an albatross. Cal is the single most indebted collegiate athletics department, and nobody else is within $100 million. Total Cal AD debt is $436 million dollars.
In 2024, the Cal AD reported a $29.7 million operating shortfall, with revenues of approximately $119.6 million and expenses of nearly $149.3 million, and that is after $37.2 million in direct support from the central campus. Without it, the Cal AD basically funds just 55% of its expenses.
I don’t know about the state of campus politics at Cal, or of the University’s financial picture as a whole, though I suspect it is just as dire as Stanford’s, though about 40% of UC’s budget (across all 10 campuses) comes from the state government, so it might be a bit more insulated, or a bit more exposed to the state’s financial condition. Right now, the state is wrestling with a fairly large budget deficit, so I think this will cascade to the UC system, and thus to Berkeley and UCLA. Consequently, I do wonder how tenable the current situation is for the Cal athletic department.
Maybe others with more knowledge of the UC system can chime in; I think at least one person here is or was on faculty (I was, almost 10 years ago, but at a UC with no athletics or undergraduates for that matter).
BC