UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham made an appearance on the Carolina Insider podcast on Friday. He covered a variety of topics with hosts Jones Angell and Adam Lucas, but one particular conversation got more attention than the rest of the interview: how the athletic department will allocate the roughly $20.5 million dollars Carolina received from the revenue sharing agreement to the various UNC teams.
Cunningham broke down which sports will get a piece of the revenue and how much they will get. UNC football will get roughly $13 million, men’s basketball about $7 million, baseball $250,000 and women’s basketball will also receive $250,000. Cunningham also noted how he came to these numbers; basically, the sports that brought in the most revenue for UNC got the biggest cut of the pot the school has to split among its’ athletes. This equates to football getting a little under 65% of the money, while men’s basketball will get almost 35%.
This is somewhat noteworthy as it deviates from what most of the rest of the country is doing. In general, most schools have been going with a 75/15/5/5 split for football, men’s basketball, baseball and women’s basketball, respectively. Football is the overwhelming breadwinner at most schools; and while it’s still the biggest revenue stream for UNC athletics as well, the numbers are a lot closer in Chapel Hill. It’s also a nod the reality of the way things are at UNC — men’s basketball has traditionally been the bigger draw nationally, and therefore earns a high percentage of revenue for Carolina than at most other universities. And while this wasn’t stated, I also feel like it was recognition of what many Tar Heel fans already know: the prestige of getting to play at Carolina isn’t solely enough to draw the top talent in the country anymore. You have to have the funds to pay them as well.
Hopefully Hubert Davis and Bill Belichick can use this new revenue split to up recruiting. Indeed, Belichick’s 2026 class is already looking strong. And UNC women’s basketball coach Courtney Banghart certainly seems to have figured out how to recruit top-tier talent. Here’s hoping the additional dollars and recruits translate into wins for the Heels.