Cal Football

Back-to-Back Historic Years For Cal Athletics

Celebrating The Generosity Of The Cal Family
By Cal Athletics
July 29, 2026
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With the 2025-26 year at an end, Cal Athletics reflects on a year of tremendous change and growth as the department positions itself toward even greater successes and expanded opportunities to serve its student-athletes. The Cal family's generosity and steadfast commitment to student-athletes has helped them compete, excel and represent Cal with pride during a time of unprecedented change in collegiate athletics. Because of this support, Cal is well positioned to build on this momentum and continue creating exceptional opportunities for its student-athletes in the seasons ahead. 

From July 2025 through June 2026, the generosity and collective commitment of the Cal family made an extraordinary impact on Cal Athletics. In total, Cal Athletics received $88.5 million in gifts and pledges, surpassing last year's department record of $82 million. The Cal community's support was especially transformative in meeting the daily needs of our student-athletes with more than $40.6 million directed toward operational expenses across all sports programs. This critical support ensures Cal student-athletes have access to the coaching, training, academic services, travel, nutrition and other essential resources they need to compete and thrive at the highest level. 

Significant impact was made this year, with 18 donors pledging $1 million or more to the department — the most in Cal Athletics history. The Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund committed $10 million to establish a dedicated practice facility for Cal men's and women's basketball, an endeavor which was further supported by a $1 million donation from Mark '83 and Lori '84 Edelstone. Additionally, multiple anonymous gifts were made — $10.5 million and $6.5 million to football, $2 million to men's basketball and $2.6 million to women's basketball.   

Several Cal programs received transformative investments toward their long-term endowment goals, with gifts totaling $18.3 million. These included Stacy Savides '85's $3 million gift to endow the women's tennis head coaching position, Tom Shaffer '79's leadership gift in support of Cal field hockey, the Rogers Family Foundation's $2.5 million gift in support of Cal men's crew, and two significant gifts were made anonymously to endow the assistant coach positions for Cal men's soccer. 



The momentum continued with four tremendously successful crowdfunding campaigns, which kicked off with the inaugural "Go for Gold" initiative followed by Cal football's Fight for California campaign, the university's annual Big Give and Cal men's basketball's Fight for California effort. In total, these four fundraising events raised more than $5.3 million in operational funds from more than 3,600 donors. 

Additionally, Cal has made remarkable progress in supporting the new revenue-sharing model, demonstrating significant momentum from 2024-25 to 2025-26. Last year, Cal Athletics raised $6.8 million across football, men's basketball and women's basketball as part of the Fight for California initiative. Support accelerated dramatically in 2025-26, with $30.6 million raised for this initiative — a remarkable 342% increase. This unprecedented growth reflects the unwavering commitment of Cal's donors and supporters to investing in the success of its student-athletes and ensuring the department remains positioned to compete at the highest level. 

Equally important has been the Cal community's collective investment in creating Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) opportunities for Cal student-athletes. Cal-affiliated companies have supported these efforts, directly fueling a modern, competitive approach to roster construction and talent acquisition.

With heartfelt gratitude for the extraordinary generosity of the Cal community, Cal Athletics looks ahead to the upcoming academic year with bold ambitions and an energized momentum. Thanks to the unwavering support of donors, alumni and fans, the future is bright for the California Golden Bears. 

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Back-to-Back Historic Years For Cal Athletics

2,449 Views | 5 Replies | Last: 3 days ago by TonyTiger
JB was a Chieftain
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3:07p, 7/29/26
Do we know how much the Dialpad naming/patch rights was worth?
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BearSD
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3:12p, 7/29/26
This is more than twice the $41 million in donations that UCLA Athletics reported receiving for the same period.
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WildBear
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6:08p, 7/29/26
So at least $30.6m for NIL related payments? Plus the others mentioned above, between 40-50m total?
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Sebastabear
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5:46p, 7/30/26
Posted this on the insider board, but will also repost here in case people are interested

Let's break this down a bit more. And this is going to be one of those times where I clarify something not to point out that it's not quite as good as it appears but rather to point out that it's significantly BETTER even that it appears.

First, some historical context (and I'm just going to isolate football here for a moment since that's where a lot of the donative energy is coming from and where the moves have been the most dramatic).

Two years ago (the 2024 fiscal year ended June 30, 2024) the Caliber fund, which was the primary vehicle for football fundraising, raised approximately $2m. In the 2025 fiscal year that number more than doubled to a bit more than $5. In the 2026 fiscal year that number was $24m. This is all cash in the door. Not pledges. Cash.

This is simply amazing and a huge, huge testament to the size, wealth and passion of our alumni base. Not too shabby for a bunch of folks who "Don't care about football", is it? That's an insane growth trajectory and speaks to how we've really gotten some of the heaviest hitters to fully engage with creating a championship-worthy football program. Couldn't be more excited about that.

But even more impressive is when you realize that all of these numbers EXCLUDE what was being given to the California Legends Collective and, more recently, LinkU, etc. to help fund the roster. So we're doing this ON TOP OF what we're doing directly for the players. Of course, it bears keeping in mind that the reason the 2024 number was so low was because most of the heaviest hitters were directing their money to California Legends (including yours truly). So when we shut down the Collective some of that money started going to Cal itself and some started going to LinkU, etc. and other above the cap vehicles. But even taking that into account, this is an unprecedented, parabolic, fund raising hockey stick.

A huge, huge amount of credit for this has to be given to Adam Brooks and Beth Voetsch who have tag teamed athletics' fundraising. They've done an amazing job. An even larger tip of the cap to Ron Rivera who single-handedly (together with Stephanie) landed that $10m gift and inspired several other major gifts and Tosh Lupoi for relentlessly focusing on fundraising with some of our largest donors since the moment he set foot on campus. He is a force of nature. Conversely, absolutely zero credit should be given to certain other administrators who not only raised exactly zero of this money but were, if anything, a significant fundraising net negative throughout much of these periods. Ridding ourselves of the last vestiges of the prior regime's control over football is no small part of what has fueled this rise. Can't wait to do the same thing for MBB.

I've looked at this a lot, and I honestly don't think there's another fanbase in football who has come further, faster than here at Cal. This fundraising growth is prodigious, both on an absolute and percentage basis. It speaks to both the opportunity and the passion of our fanbase. There is simply no way for schools from less economically blessed regions (and that includes essentially the entire SEC, with the possible exception of Texas) to compete with what we can accomplish when we want it. And as the rest of the college football world is learning, we want it. Badly.
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TonyTiger
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In reply to Sebastabear • 12:37a, 7/31/26
Sebastabear said:
Posted this on the insider board, but will also repost here in case people are interested

Let's break this down a bit more. And this is going to be one of those times where I clarify something not to point out that it's not quite as good as it appears but rather to point out that it's significantly BETTER even that it appears.

First, some historical context (and I'm just going to isolate football here for a moment since that's where a lot of the donative energy is coming from and where the moves have been the most dramatic).

Two years ago (the 2024 fiscal year ended June 30, 2024) the Caliber fund, which was the primary vehicle for football fundraising, raised approximately $2m. In the 2025 fiscal year that number more than doubled to a bit more than $5. In the 2026 fiscal year that number was $24m. This is all cash in the door. Not pledges. Cash.

This is simply amazing and a huge, huge testament to the size, wealth and passion of our alumni base. Not too shabby for a bunch of folks who "Don't care about football", is it? That's an insane growth trajectory and speaks to how we've really gotten some of the heaviest hitters to fully engage with creating a championship-worthy football program. Couldn't be more excited about that.

But even more impressive is when you realize that all of these numbers EXCLUDE what was being given to the California Legends Collective and, more recently, LinkU, etc. to help fund the roster. So we're doing this ON TOP OF what we're doing directly for the players. Of course, it bears keeping in mind that the reason the 2024 number was so low was because most of the heaviest hitters were directing their money to California Legends (including yours truly). So when we shut down the Collective some of that money started going to Cal itself and some started going to LinkU, etc. and other above the cap vehicles. But even taking that into account, this is an unprecedented, parabolic, fund raising hockey stick.

A huge, huge amount of credit for this has to be given to Adam Brooks and Beth Voetsch who have tag teamed athletics' fundraising. They've done an amazing job. An even larger tip of the cap to Ron Rivera who single-handedly (together with Stephanie) landed that $10m gift and inspired several other major gifts and Tosh Lupoi for relentlessly focusing on fundraising with some of our largest donors since the moment he set foot on campus. He is a force of nature. Conversely, absolutely zero credit should be given to certain other administrators who not only raised exactly zero of this money but were, if anything, a significant fundraising net negative throughout much of these periods. Ridding ourselves of the last vestiges of the prior regime's control over football is no small part of what has fueled this rise. Can't wait to do the same thing for MBB.

I've looked at this a lot, and I honestly don't think there's another fanbase in football who has come further, faster than here at Cal. This fundraising growth is prodigious, both on an absolute and percentage basis. It speaks to both the opportunity and the passion of our fanbase. There is simply no way for schools from less economically blessed regions (and that includes essentially the entire SEC, with the possible exception of Texas) to compete with what we can accomplish when we want it. And as the rest of the college football world is learning, we want it. Badly.

I wonder if Mark is getting anything. But one thing at a time. This is insane.
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