UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond has unveiled the school’s plans for its operations in light of the House settlement agreement with the NCAA, which allows schools to pay athletes directly starting July 1. The big takeaways are that UCLA will distribute $20.5 million in revenue sharing, keep its Olympic sports programs and staff intact, and preserve scholarship limits.
“This is a pivotal moment in collegiate athletics,” Jarmond said. “We have to continue to invest in our athletics program to compete at the highest level.” He expects to follow other Power Four conference schools in using a back-payment formula to distribute revenue sharing money to athletes.
Under this formula, football players will receive roughly 75% of the money, while men’s basketball players will get 15%. Women’s basketball players and all remaining athletes will receive 5%. Payments will rise each year as part of a 10-year settlement agreement.
Jarmond has committed to keeping scholarship limits at their current levels, allowing UCLA to provide each player on scholarship with a bigger share of revenue. The school will also preserve its Olympic sports, which have provided the lion’s share of NCAA championships in an athletic department widely regarded as one of the best in the nation.
The ability to pay players directly could help UCLA by narrowing the resource gap between the Bruins and other Big Ten Conference schools that had more deep-pocketed NIL collectives. The school will also be able to secure true NIL opportunities with a third-party partner based in Los Angeles, providing Bruins athletes with an advantage in securing marketing deals.
However, Jarmond acknowledged that having traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby for federal NIL legislation is necessary to eliminate the imbalance that exists with more than 30 states having their own NIL laws. The settlement involving back pay to athletes will also reduce UCLA’s share of NCAA revenue by more than $1 million annually for the next 10 years.
Overall, Jarmond believes the move is long overdue and expects UCLA to be creative with revenue generation in this new world. “We have to be bold and innovative,” he said. “UCLA has always been on the forefront and been a leader, and that’s not going to change.”
Source: https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2025-06-07/how-will-ucla-use-funds-scholarships-under-house-settlement-rules