A decision is expected within the next day or two on whether NFL coaching legend Bill Belichick will become UNC Chapel Hill’s next head football coach.
Earlier this week, UNC made an offer to hire the former New England Patriots coach, whose teams won eight Super Bowls. Belichick countered UNC’s proposal with a hefty document that emphasized he has some specific, expensive ideas about what the program needs to do.
“Belichick’s bible would require historic levels of investment from the school,” to pay players and for a host of other things, according to a tweet from Ollie Connolly, the head of U.S. sports for British media group The Guardian.
Connolly didn’t define historic, but a source pegs the number as an extra $25 million in annual spending.
Former Head Coach Mack Brown’s team generated $67.2 million in revenue, including media rights fees, while the overall athletics program was $273,587 in the black, WCHL reported earlier this year.
UNC Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham and his team spent $44.5 million on football in fiscal 2022-23, according to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database and other sources.
Belichick’s challenge would be to generate significantly more revenue to over the higher spending. TV payouts are somewhat inflexible in the short run until new media rights deals are finalized. UNC is a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which has an inferior broadcast rights agreement compared with the SEC and Big 10 conferences. Higher ticket prices and increased donations could provide more revenue.
Another option could be to boost student athletic fees, which are much lower at UNC and NC State than other UNC System schools, which don’t receive nearly as much from media deals. At UNC, the Knight-Newhouse database shows student fees accounted for about $7.9 million, or 6% of the budget.
At UNC Charlotte, those fees were nearly $25 million, or 54% of the athletics budget. But raising student fees requires permission from the system office and the Board of Governors.
The back-and-forth about UNC’s coaching situation has displayed rifts among campus leaders related to Brown’s departure and Belichick’s recruitment. System President Peter Hans warned trustees early this year to stick to their mostly advisory role and avoid meddling in duties assigned to Chancellor Lee Roberts.
But Brown said he had discussed his potential departure with Cunningham and trustees Chairman John Preyer, not with Roberts. (Belichick has publicly acknowledged talking to Roberts about the job.) Preyer was also critical of how UNC officials handled Brown’s removal.
Trustees going over the chancellor’s head could “be grounds for dismissal from the board,” a report in the Athletic noted.
Reached Tuesday, Preyer said he was on another call and couldn’t comment beyond noting, “There’s been a lot of interest.”
Officials of the system office have not responded to requests for comment this week.
