Tracy Pierson ’83

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The sight of Bruin blue and gold. The sound of thousands of cheering fans. The smell of popcorn. The smashing of laptop keys. For Tracy Pierson ’83, owner of Bruin Report Online (BRO), this is just another day in the office.

Pierson, a UCLA alumnus with a B.A. in English, has been at the helm of Bruin Report Online since 1998. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this November, BRO, the UCLA site on the 247Sports Network (a division of Paramount Global), that covers UCLA Football, Basketball, recruiting updates and other UCLA Athletics news, has amassed an annual following of 150 million page views and three million unique users. BRO’s digital footprint also reaches Facebook, Twitter and a weekly podcast named the “BROCast” which can be found on all major podcast streaming channels.

“No matter how the teams perform, we [BRO] have held on pretty well,” said Pierson. “UCLA fans will support a site like this. Other UCLA websites have come and gone, but I feel that we’ve fulfilled an interesting niche.”

BRO’s roots stretch back to 1998 when the site first began as the UCLA-dedicated team page in the Rivals.com network. Unfortunately, in 2001, Rivals.com ceased operation as part of the collapse of the Dot-com bubble, leaving Pierson to navigate a period of economic uncertainty with a growing business and a hungry fanbase. However, the reputation of Pierson’s past coverage with BRO was so strong that over 800 subscribers that had time on their subscriptions to Rivals.com committed to purchasing annual subscriptions to Pierson’s next endeavor.

“The forums have helped create an amazing community of support in and outside of the UCLA community.”

“When over 800 of our followers committed to continuing their subscriptions to BRO in that time…That was kind of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ type moment in my life,” he said.

After several transitions and acquisitions, BRO and Pierson settled into an agreement with 247Sports and CBS in 2017 and has been with them ever since.

The management of BRO is certainly an undertaking for Pierson, but he is grateful that he doesn’t have to shoulder the responsibility all by himself. The team at BRO is currently comprised of a staff of eight employees, four of whom are also UCLA alumni (David Woods ’08, Mike Regalado ’03, Chris Osgood ’01, and Steve Cheng ’95).

In addition to regular coverage of UCLA Athletics-related news, the site also houses the largest online community of UCLA fans on the Internet who regularly converse on its message forums.

Pierson said, “The forums have helped create an amazing community of support in and outside of the UCLA community. Some of our people have met their best friends for life. Two people met on our forum and eventually got married.”

He added that the forum community has raised tens of thousands of dollars in support of other community members, whether it’s a family dealing with medical challenges or the funeral of one of its regulars. The BRO forum community also donated $300,000 towards the funding for the Wasserman Football Center. “The community impact of the forums through BRO has been huge.”

However, despite the strength of BRO’s positive impact on the Bruin community, Pierson and his team are aware that not everyone is appreciative of the site’s coverage.

He said, “We’ve done a lot of things right, but we’re not just a cheerleader site that just says, ‘Everyone’s an All-American!’ and ‘Everyone’s really good!’ We’ve been critical over the years. We’ve been criticized for being critical, and I understand that. Fans want to hear positive things about their teams and don’t want to hear the reality of their teams. That’s not really who we are…but we seem to have found the right formula of what works for our coverage and what the fans want to hear.”

Pierson himself is an avid Bruin fan who has plenty of cherished memories of his time as a student, but running the Internet’s preeminent UCLA sports fan site is ultimately a business that comes with certain costs.

On average, Pierson spends around 60 hours a week managing the site from his home office in Westlake Village (a marked decrease from the 90-100 average weekly hours reportedly spent in recent years). “It’s a 24-hour job,” he lamented. “Things happen at all hours of the day. Everyone else can take off Friday afternoon and come back on Monday, but we work all weekend. I think it was 15 years before I took an actual vacation.”

It's a labor of love for Pierson, though, as UCLA is an institution that inspires him.

“UCLA represents things that you can believe in,” he explained. “It’s the state school. It’s a merit-based school. There are so many things about UCLA that I’ve taught my kids that have meaning. When you have a job, and in my case, reporting on teams that represent something like UCLA, something you believe in, it gives it an added purpose. It’s not about privilege, it’s not about entitlement, it’s about your own merit. That’s what UCLA means to me.”

Pierson’s passion for UCLA is a family affair, too.

“UCLA was a big thing for my family,” he said. “I went here. My brother went here. My nephew went here, and his wife. My parents went to [UC] Berkeley. So, UC was a big thing for us too…I was always destined to go to UCLA. It was ingrained in our family.”

Three of Pierson’s kids also went to UCLA. His eldest daughter Michael O’Hara earned her M.S.W. in 2014; Carly Pierson earned her B.S. in 2018; and Crawford Pierson earned his B.A. in 2020 and was a walk-on kicker for the UCLA Football team.

“This job has enabled me to work from home, coach my kids as they played sports, and just be around them and the family as they grew. I’m very thankful,” he said.

Looking forward, Pierson and the team at BRO recognize the need to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of media coverage to grow its footprint. Part of that growth incorporates the need to produce more video content.

He explained, “When we started, display advertising was the biggest vehicle of growth, but in recent years, video advertising is the future of our growth. 247Sports has a lot of video studios, and we’ll get there eventually. However, we know that a lot of our subscribers don’t prefer that content, and we truly want to keep everyone happy, especially our loyal followers since 1998.”

For now, though, Pierson and the team at BRO are committed to delivering up-to-date coverage of UCLA sports on their current platform for years to come.

Visit Bruin Report Online for more information or to join its growing community.