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The athletic director knows where the money is.
Bubba Cunningham is in his last full year as Carolina’s AD. He has learned about the past, battled his own learning curve the last 12 years and now aims at a bigger and wider mission.
Cunningham told the Carolina Insider Podcast last week that UNC’s first revenue share is splitting up the $20.5 million with 65 percent to football, 35 percent to men’s basketball and if any leftovers, women’s hoops and baseball might get some of the pie.
But Courtney Banghart’s and Scott Forbes’ programs will benefit regardless of whatever rev share comes their way. There are new and revised scholarship limits to each sport, with women’s basketball and baseball possibly making new money from NIL and the Rams Club’s continued success.
Women’s basketball and baseball are exchanging how they handle scholarships. Banghart had a roster limit of 15 scholarship players through the end of last season. And they could not be split up like many of the other Olympic sports. Banghart can now use some of her scholarships as “fulls” – meaning tuition, room, board, books and whatever spending money they allow.
But because her program has grown over the last few years, and Carolina is among the most popular places to go to school for recruited athletes, she can still lure a few recruits with partial grants to build a deeper roster and allow her to keep a longer rotation.
Baseball is the biggest benefactor of the new rules. We heard for years how Mike Fox and Forbes split up their allotted 11.7 scholarships and succeeded through the Diamond Heels’ record.
But baseball now has a roster and scholarship limit of 34, which is about three times the “fulls” as in the past. Forbes can use full scholarships to help land some of the best players in the country. And he can break up a few of those to help build an even deeper roster of 34 with a 190 percent increase in scholarship money.
Here is where all the Carolina athletes over 26 sports can offset less scholarship money in their pockets from the revised NIL program.
All athletes can still earn NIL money, although the new CSC (College Sports Commission) will better manage what and how the athletes earn money being valued more accurately (and, to some, honestly) than it has in the past.
And executive director John Montgomery and his kick-ass staff keep setting records for funding through the Rams Club’s scholarship endowment while its annual giving has gone from $150 million in 2017 to $391 million in six years. The various ways they can spend it beyond scholarships is still unclear.
So with UNC making its biggest financial commitment to athletics, new avenues are available for additional money made by even those who are getting full scholarships or less.
For Bubba and his successor Steve Newmark, it could be the biggest win-win that Cunningham and Carolina have ever had.
Featured image via UNC-Chapel Hill/Jon Gardiner
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
