DeShaun Foster, standing on the Spaulding Field turf at the Wasserman Football Center, only has to point to the team in the facility directly across to see how quickly a boost in funding can change fortunes in today’s collegiate athletics world.

So, the UCLA football program sought to restructure its name, image and likeness (NIL) operation as one of three major changes announced Tuesday.

Foster, though, said 24 hours later that the new Bruins for Life football-only collective was in the works long before the official unveiling and has already surpassed $1 million in contributions.

“We’re already at seven figures, so we’re pretty excited about that,” Foster said after Wednesday’s practice. “We really see that the Bruin fans and some of our alumni have really taken pride in trying to get this collective going for football, so I’m just excited and thankful for everybody that has donated to it and we’ll continue to raise money and that’s what it takes right now in college football. So for you to kind of change your team, you’ve got to have some money to be able to entice guys to come and see, so I’m just excited that we were able to get that going.”

Foster used the UCLA men’s basketball program as an example. After missing the NCAA tournament last season with an inexperienced group of players from all over the world, head coach Mick Cronin brought in six new transfers and now the Bruins will head into next month’s season opener ranked in the top 25.

“Basketball just did a good job in the offseason being able to acquire a lot of talent and we really wanted to be able to do the same thing,” Foster said.

So, the football program branched off from the Men of Westwood umbrella, which will now exclusively support the men’s basketball team, and the football operation will now be led by former UCLA safety and two-time Super Bowl champion James Washington and philanthropist and longtime UCLA Athletics supporter John Manuck.

Teri Hanneke, a former UCLA Athletics assistant athletic director of compliance, will serve as the business operations assistant for Bruins for Life.

UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said in a statement that change is in response to an evolving NIL landscape.

The existing Champions of Westwood fund will support women’s basketball and Olympic sports.

“This restructure is designed to bring further alignment and clarity of purpose to NIL funds, with the ultimate goal of supporting our student-athletes at an elite level,” Jarmond said in the statement. “I am grateful to our collective and our department leadership for their efforts to support our student-athletes. We all have one goal – to attract, develop and retain the best and brightest to Westwood.”

Plain and simple, that requires money as collegiate athletics continues to lean into the very thing that was once taboo less than a decade ago.

Foster said certain talent at certain positions in the transfer portal “command certain money.”

While the move comes at the midway point of the season and before the portal gets active again in December, Foster added that the timing of the announcement was just a matter of the athletic department waiting to roll out the announcement.

“It’s huge because I have to retain and I have to recruit some new guys,” Foster said. “It was just good that I think that our donors understand the nature of the business and where college football is going. … It’s been in the works for a little bit.”