For a program drowning in empty seats, mounting losses, and a staggering $219 million athletic deficit, hope has been scarce at Westwood. But UCLA believes it found that hope in Bob Chesney, and the new head coach didn’t arrive alone. Backed by a major financial promise from Steph Curry’s inner circle, Chesney walked into his introduction vowing not just a rebuild, but a resurrection.

Chesney’s jump from James Madison to UCLA is a big one, but it is also quite ironic. UCLA is a big name in collegiate sports, but the football program lies bruised and battered. Bob Chesney now has to pick up a program that last finished with double-digit wins in 2014. Since then, the Bruins have managed only a handful of winning seasons, with no return to that 10-win mark.

“To our student body, we need you now more than ever,” Chesney said in his introduction speech. “This is not just our team. This is your team. To the administrators, to the professors. Right as classes go on, I will be reaching out to a lot personally to make sure that those relationships are developed. I will be present on campus and make sure I go around personally and do class checks. This is also your team.”

Fans started to give up on UCLA football as it plateaued into a losing program. Chesney has to rebuild relationships that have iced out on a bad note. Since moving to the Rose Bowl, UCLA’s five worst attendance records for home games have come in the past 5 seasons (excluding the time marred by COVID-19). UCLA fans flew a banner that read ‘Fire UCLA AD Martin Jarmond’ before the Penn State game. This was in the midst of the AD still looking for DeShaun Foster’s replacement. This season, even with star QB Nico Iamaleava, UCLA hit rock bottom.

The apathy shows up in the books as much as in the bleachers. UCLA has averaged barely 35,000–37,000 fans in a 90,000-seat Rose Bowl in recent seasons, and football ticket revenue has fallen to about $11.6 million a year, down from roughly $20 million when the program last drew record crowds in 2014. The situation has become so strained that the city of Pasadena and the Rose Bowl Operating Company have sued UCLA over alleged plans to move home games to SoFi Stadium, citing the empty seats as part of the school’s push for a fresh start.

“What we’re seeing isn’t just a rough patch. It’s institutional apathy,” Scott Tretsky, a UCLA donor, told the LA Times. “And if the administration doesn’t care, why should fans and recruits?”

Bob Chesney’s record should instill some hope in fans. The HC tends to create winning seasons after the first year. And after that one year, conference championships come on a roll. Chesney won 5 back-to-back Patriot League Championships with Holy Cross and won the Sun Belt Conference Title this year with JMU. The Bruins are getting a head coach who will compete in the playoffs. It’s a big win even if the Dukes are knocked out in the first round.

At every stop, the same arc has shown up. At Holy Cross, he turned a struggling program into a 44–21 machine that ripped off five straight Patriot League titles and reached the FCS quarterfinals in 2022. At James Madison, he went 21–5 in two seasons, delivered the school’s first FBS bowl win, and then pushed the Dukes straight into the Sun Belt title and a CFP berth.

Bob Chesney has never coached at a P4 school before. But he sure does plan to make UCLA a success story regardless of how dire the situation is. Chesney’s addition to the program is also getting a stamp of approval from donors, which should have fans looking up to his leadership.

In his first public remarks, Chesney made it clear he isn’t coming to Westwood to tread water. He told reporters he doesn’t want UCLA to be “the other school in this town,” but the school, and pointed to James Madison’s rise from first FBS bowl win to Sun Belt champion and College Football Playoff qualifier as proof that his blueprint can scale on the West Coast.

UCLA set to spend big for the Bob Chesney era

Not only is UCLA football languishing in utter despair on the gridiron, but it is also seeing a nightmare in the account books. The athletic department has run a combined deficit of roughly $219.55 million over the last six fiscal years. And the poor state of football will make it a long time before that number starts looking less dangerous. Hiring Bob Chesney was a step in the right direction, but UCLA will need more than his plans to take the program out of this slump.

Here’s where former Bruin Bob Myers is helping make a difference. Myers was the Golden State Warriors’ GM and shares a close bond with Steph Curry. The former was also part of the UCLA head coach search committee. Myers isn’t just a celebrity fan dropping by Westwood. As Steph Curry’s longtime general manager, he helped build four NBA championship teams in Golden State, and now serves as a University of California regent who has been publicly pressing administrators about the athletic department’s ballooning $219-plus-million deficit.

When someone with that combination of rings and political leverage tells a coach the school is finally ready to spend, it carries a different kind of weight. Before his hiring, Chesney had asked what financial commitments UCLA was going to make to help him succeed. Myers was ready to take the big leap this time.

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Reports out of the introductory presser indicate that commitment goes beyond slogans. UCLA has agreed to boost its assistant coach salary pool and pour fresh money into a revamped NIL operation, with the explicit goal of lifting football into the Big Ten’s upper tier of spending instead of scraping along near the bottom.

“You’ll be in the top third, maybe top quartile, to compete with these schools financially as far as what revenue we can provide from the school, NIL support,” Myers told of that conversation to the press after Chesney’s introduction.

It’s a bold move from UCLA because the program ranked at the bottom of the Big Ten in annual spending this year. Clearly, the journey to be part of the Top 3-4 will be a tedious task for Chesney and Co. For example, UCLA’s 2026 class is ranked 66th in the country and 16th in the Big Ten on On3’s industry rankings, a profile that still lags well behind most of the conference’s heavyweights. Recruiting alone has taken a big hit since. The transfer portal is also making things difficult for Chesney.

Fans have already run out of patience for UCLA football’s growth. But Bob Chesney isn’t like his recent predecessors and has a pattern of turning his teams into conference dominators. It will be some time before the Bruins begin to look like that, but he won’t be able to do it without the support of UCLA’s students and donors.