How UNC-Chapel Hill Could Find $20.5 Million to Pay Athletes

UNC-Chapel Hill, like other major college sports programs, will spend $20.5 million this year to pay student athletes for the first time. The change marks a new era of athletics that was inaugurated last month when a California judge signed off on the House vs. NCAA settlement.

But first, UNC-CH has to find the money. 

The Assembly obtained two internal documents via public records request that show various options the Tar Heels have explored to fund the new revenue-sharing model. Associate Athletic Director Josh Borfitz sent both to new UNC-CH Athletics Chief Revenue Officer Rick Barakat in an April email.

The documents show the athletic department has floated everything from selling advertising on players’ jerseys to revamping its financial relationship with UNC-CH’s sports boosters and other parts of the university. Some of the ideas are already being implemented.

One of the documents shows UNC-CH’s actual revenue from big items like ticket sales, premium seating, and fundraising. The other explores potential new revenue streams and cost savings and lists a goal of freeing up $22 million. That document was last updated October 1, 2024.

“It was used to brainstorm ideas and potential concepts regarding revenue generation as we prepared to fund revenue sharing,” UNC-CH athletics spokesperson Robbi Pickeral Evans said. “We have not made any final decisions regarding which initiatives we may implement.” 

Their model estimates UNC-CH could earn $500,000 per year for the naming rights to each of Carmichael Arena and Boshamer Stadium, and $2 million each for Kenan Stadium and the Dean E. Smith Center. ABC11 previously reported that the university was considering selling the rights to Kenan and that UNC-CH was in talks with the consulting company Independent Sports & Entertainment to support the effort.

A note next to the Kenan entry in the worksheet says the estimate “may be low” and that Kenan alone could earn “$4M – $5M / year per Owen Shull,” the president of ISE’s properties division.

Small advertisements on men’s basketball jerseys, billed as “gameday patches,” could bring in $3 million a year, according to the spreadsheet. A note cites “Wasserman” for the estimate—a reference to the consultants Wasserman Media Group, to which UNC-CH paid tens of thousands of dollars in 2023 and 2024, as The Assembly previously reported. Those payments were referred to in its legal bills as “court reporting fees.” 

Gameday patches for football could net $1 million, while baseball and women’s basketball are estimated to bring in $250,000 each.

The model also explores increasing ticket and parking prices and reducing the number of complimentary tickets and parking passes given to men’s basketball and football players. On Wednesday, the Tar Heels announced they had already sold out of football tickets for the 2025-26 season, the first under former Patriots coach Bill Belichick, despite a 25 percent price hike for season tickets.

An entry under “Re-imagined basketball arena” estimates that a new venue to replace the Dean Dome would provide $24.6 million in net income, compared to the $9.6 million currently generated. The spreadsheet notes that those figures are estimates and says a “refined” financial analysis will follow. 

In a February interview with the Triangle Business Journal, UNC-CH Chancellor Lee Roberts said a lack of premium seating and parking challenges have hampered the Dean Dome, and a new arena could include mixed-use development to further boost revenue. 

The documents show the finances behind those claims. Premium seats at Kenan Stadium’s Blue Zone—which includes a number of luxury boxes—brought in around $5 million for each of the past three years, while a note lists the total from men’s basketball premium seating in the 2024 fiscal year at $340,000.

UNC Athletics already brings in revenue from non-college sports, like hosting European soccer games at Kenan Stadium for the past two years. The documents show the school has discussed continuing those games while adding concerts, as well.

The school is also looking at ways to bring existing revenue in house, such as transferring the licenses for premium seats and the gifts that help donors secure them from the Rams Club—UNC-CH’s official athletics booster club—to the university.

The Rams Club has already been asked to do additional fundraising. In November, it launched a fund and an endowment as “strategic investment opportunities that provide short-term and long-term flexibility in a new age of college sports.” The documents show the club raised $3.6 million for the football fund in the 2025 fiscal year, plus an additional $330,000 for the men’s basketball fund. The endowment goal was $12 million, $8.6 million of which had been raised when the document was last updated, which was “earlier this year,” Evans said.

UNC-CH also created estimates for ending its multimedia rights contract with the sports marketing company Learfield. UNC Athletics signed the current contract in 2017, allowing Learfield to produce play-by-play radio broadcasts and other media, like television shows with the head coaches. Learfield also sells the ads for them and handles in-stadium advertisements, promotional material like trading cards, and the official athletics website, GoHeels.com.

UNC Athletics receives a fixed annual payment, then splits any additional revenue with Learfield. By letting its current Learfield contract end in 2029 and bringing promotional operations in house, UNC-CH estimates it could earn nearly $5 million more, even with increased operating expenses.

As for cost reductions, UNC Athletics priced out cutting staff, leaving vacant positions unfilled, restricting overtime, and eliminating charter team flights for road trips under 400 miles.

The athletics department is also considering asking for additional university support. It received $21 million in other institutional funds last year, as The Assembly and Axios reported in March. The options include re-allocating revenue from trademarks and licensing that currently goes to non-athletics scholarships, asking UNC Health to fund sports medicine operations, and asking the provost’s office to fund the Academic Support Program for Student Athletes.

The model also includes an entry on the “reduction of sports, tiering, scholarship limitations” and prices out three options, from eliminating some sports to fully funding new rosters. UNC-CH currently offers more varsity sports than most other schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference, though only basketball and football generate significant revenue.

UNC-CH Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham has remained adamant that the university will maintain “outstanding championship experiences for our student-athletes across our 28-sport, broad-based program,” as he said in a recent public letter.

The variety of plans in these documents shows just how much work it will take to do that as college athletes become paid players.