UCLA has brought in former Disney executive Daniel Cruz to reportedly improve the fan experience for Bruins fans attending the school's sporting events.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Cruz was brought in to overhaul the school's ticket operations. He has also spearheaded a new lounge inside the Pauley Pavilion, while also positioning the school to maximize revenue from a new field-level club at the Rose Bowl.
UCLA has brought in former Disney executive Daniel Cruz to reportedly improve the fan experience for Bruins fans attending the school's sporting events.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Cruz was brought in to overhaul the school's ticket operations. He has also spearheaded a new lounge inside the Pauley Pavilion, while also positioning the school to maximize revenue from a new field-level club at the Rose Bowl.
“Essentially, what I’m trying to do is just trying to set us up for success and do things differently,” Cruz told the Times, “because the old way of how college athletics normally conducts business, it’s not working.”
Cruz is acting as UCLA’s new deputy athletics director and chief revenue officer.
As part of the shakeup, 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. The school will also implement a dynamic pricing structure, which will allow for lower prices for less desirable games.
“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?"
The Rose Bowl will see a new field-level club open for the 2026 season, which will include a restaurant-bar setup, as well as 1,200 plush, extra-wide seats. 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.
Cruz said its all about maximizing the use of the venue and creating additional revenue streams.
“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.”
Cruz said he'll also be moving some of the staff's marketing personelle into fan experience specialists.
“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?”
