UCLA spent 15% of their entire football budget on food last year

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Under coach Chip Kelly, who sees nutrition as key to the making of a football player, the fare has gotten decidedly better — and decidedly more expensive. In 2018, his first year at UCLA, the budget for non-travel meals more than doubled to $2.6 million. The following year, the tab grew to $5.4 million, dwarfing spending at higher-profile programs and raising questions about a UCLA athletic department that reported an $18.9-million deficit for last year.

Through a public records request, The Times obtained more than 500 pages of invoices and receipts that shed light on food costs. Among the menu selections: Guajillo chili chicken, coffee-braised brisket, and pork chops smothered in candied apples and onions. During off-season workouts last year, UCLA spent more than $40,000 to import five barbecue meals from an Arizona-based restaurant. On other occasions, the program ordered hundreds of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches from a Los Angeles caterer at $4.95 each.

The $65-million Wasserman center, which opened in 2017, includes a state-of-the-art locker room and barbershop but no dining hall. The program must pay to have food delivered and arranged on buffet tables for three, sometimes four, meals a day.

While the program plowed more money into areas such as support staff, recruiting and game expenses, spending on meals represented 15% of the team expenses and the single biggest increase in non-severance spending.

By comparison, other Pac-12 schools spent from $399,000 to $1.2 million on non-travel football meals in 2019, according to financial disclosures filed with the NCAA. That doesn’t include Stanford and USC, which don’t have to provide the information because they are private.

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