A courtside lounge? Dynamic ticket pricing? UCLA hopes new sports ventures will pay off
Daniel Cruz was brought in from the Burbank-based media and entertainment giant last fall to work some magic with a college operation in need of new concepts. Six consecutive years of running in the red has led to a staggering $219.5-million deficit that won't be wiped away with the waving of any wand.
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One solution might be surprisingly simple: Give the fans what they want, and they'll keep coming back.
That's why Cruz has spearheaded efforts to overhaul the school's ticket operations and build a courtside lounge inside Pauley Pavilion, not to mention maximize revenue from a planned field-level club at the Rose Bowl. They're all measures intended to enhance the fan experience and build brand loyalty.
'Essentially, what I'm trying to do is just trying to set us up for success and do things differently,' said Cruz, UCLA's new deputy athletics director and chief revenue officer, 'because the old way of how college athletics normally conducts business, it's not working.'
Read more: 'How does this thing not sink?' UC regent Bob Myers questions UCLA athletics' finances
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As part of a partnership scheduled to be announced Tuesday, UCLA is switching from its longstanding in-house ticketing agency to Elevate, which will modernize operations and build a customer database that allows more targeted marketing. Elevate will handle both primary and secondary ticket sales, preventing unaffiliated brokers from undermining sales and devaluing tickets.
There's also going to be dynamic pricing that will allow lower prices for less desirable games, something that was impossible under the school's previous antiquated system.
'It's going to be huge because we are now professionalizing how we go to market, how we price things,' Cruz said. 'I get a lot of complaints from fans that they think ticket prices are too high for certain games and they may be right, so how do we pull those levers to make it accessible on games that it's not full, so we can get people in?'
A new field-level club in the south end zone of the Rose Bowl could create heavy demand at a stadium that is routinely less than half full. The club, set to open in time for the 2026 season, is expected to host a restaurant-bar setup that will allow fans to walk onto the field, watch players come out of a nearby tunnel and grab something to eat before returning to a section of 1,200 plush, extra-wide seats.
The Rose Bowl is planning to build a new field-level club for fans attending UCLA football games.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
The Rose Bowl has agreed to foot the estimated $20-million construction cost and let UCLA keep the premium seating ticket revenue, Cruz said, as part of a mutually beneficial arrangement. The stadium will utilize the club for other events that it hosts such as concerts.
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Given that the Rose Bowl has kept all of the existing suite revenue for UCLA games as part of its lease agreement with the school, the new arrangement could be considered something of a coup for the Bruins.
Another revenue opportunity involves a massive stage on the north side of the stadium overlooking the adjacent country club that will allow UCLA to bring in DJs and musical acts for pregame festivities. UCLA will sell cabana space, food and premium parking to provide a tailgate experience for both football fans and others who just want to have a good time.
Read more: Rose Bowl improvements: Eye on the future while preserving the past
'How do we attract fans who maybe don't normally come to a football game, right?' Cruz said. 'It's a whole-day experience — come, enjoy concierge service with your friends, enjoy a great football game and that atmosphere that we're trying to generate.'
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Additional revenue has already been raised from sponsorships involving players wearing UCLA uniforms as part of new co-branded advertisements; for example, star center Lauren Betts is featured in multiple billboards for La Victoria salsas and sauces.
Cruz also has plans to elevate the fan experience at Pauley Pavilion. He wants to use the existing infrastructure to create a courtside donor lounge that could be in place before the start of next season. The lounge, which would provide a more upscale experience than the Pavilion Club, could come with a naming-rights deal and a membership fee for high-level donors.
There's also been discussions about revamping the Pavilion Club to provide more segmented experiences; perhaps one section would cater to young alumni with a DJ and open bar while another would serve other alumni who want a more relaxed atmosphere where they can catch up with friends over a pregame meal.
'That's a really big room, so how do we cut that up and divide that to make a better experience for everybody?' Cruz said. 'We've got so many folks that we're trying to cater to and I want to be sensitive to that and I want to create an experience for them that makes it so they want to come back.'
UCLA students cheer during a men's basketball game against USC at Pauley Pavilion on March 8.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
One development that could be a season away would certainly please fans who have groused about too many empty seats in the lower level being shown on television. Cruz said he wanted to flip the lower-level stands and team benches to the seating configuration that existed before the Pauley Pavilion renovations, allowing the students who pack their section to be showcased on broadcasts.
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'That section is always full of students,' Cruz said. 'We could be playing Idaho State and it's full with students all the time, so the rest of the country needs to see that.'
Why not just move the TV cameras? Cruz said it would cost $6 million to transfer all the wiring and fiber optics built into the current platforms that were specially built for the cameras.
Men's basketball coach Mick Cronin and Cori Close, his women's basketball counterpart, have agreed to the potential move, Cruz said, as have the fans he's canvassed about switching seats.
In the meantime, UCLA is partnering with a global sports and entertainment company to improve the in-game experience for fans, including new ways to keep the energy flowing during timeouts while the Bruins are in the midst of a big run instead of relying on scoreboard ads and awkward silences.
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Read more: 'A makeup call.' UCLA athletic department financial challenges traced to legacy deals
Cruz said he's converting some of his department's marketing staff into fan experience specialists to improve fan retention.
'How do we create an experience where it's like, man, that was fun, I want to come back?' Cruz said. 'That leads to more revenue and it also leads to a larger pathway for our alumni and students to make them want to come back. How do we create that cycle of, yeah, they care, they want us here, and I want to come back?'
If winning is the greatest promotion in sports, Cruz is trying to show that listening may not be far behind.
Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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