It’s not every day that college football’s cash factor gets a new playbook, but here we are. The CFB landscape seems to have added a new element to its wiring, and it’s all merry for the student-athletes, especially football. Well…let’s zoom back a couple of weeks. Judge Claudia Wilken gave a green signal to the House vs. NCAA Settlement, bringing financial security to student-athletes. According to the settlement, programs are allowed to compensate their players, and the budget cap is set at a whopping $20.5 million. Provided with a new structure to work with, programs are grappling to manage the cap. So, what’s the latest intel at Chapel Hill?

Well, the popular cash slice among different sports verticals is about 75-15-5-5. To elaborate, 75% for football, 15% for men’s basketball, and another 5% for women’s basketball. The rest? Distributed among the remaining verticals. Texas has it this way, but UNC has gone about it with a different approach. In a podcast with Carolina Insider, AD Bubba Cunningham shared UNC’s breakdown of the $20 million cap.

Cunningham revealed that the majority chunk will go to football. “The settlement itself from the House case is 75-15-5-5: 75% to football, 15% to men’s basketball, 5% to women’s basketball, 5% to everybody else,” he stated. But instead of 75%, it will be 65% for Bill Belichick’s Tar Heels. Then the remaining 35% of the cash pie will go towards men’s basketball.

“Ours is broken down 65% to football, 35% to men’s basketball. I know that’s 100 right there, so we don’t quite go over 100%, but that’s roughly where it is. And then baseball is next, and women’s basketball is fourth,” he added. Men’s baseball and women’s basketball will receive a relatively minuscule amount of $250,000 each.

The division is based on how much revenue these sports generate, and it will adjust after this year based on what financial figures look like. So, the Tar Heels football team will receive a $13 million chunk. The men’s basketball team will receive $7 million. This distribution is as per the percentage of revenue that UNC’s football and men’s basketball programs generate. In 2022-23, the two programs generated 71% of the total revenue. That decreased to 60.2% in the following fiscal year. That doesn’t explain why the two programs will get almost 100% of the total cap, but with Bill Belichick’s arrival at UNC, the revenue is only going to increase.

In addition to that, for the women’s basketball team under head coach Courtney Banghart, the payroll will be over $1 million. “Courtney had done such an incredible job of fundraising, so her payroll, if you will, is over a million dollars this year for the women’s basketball team,” Cunningham said. “So that’s very competitive with some of the top programs in the country.”

So, yes, the numbers look a bit daunting right now, but that’s when UNC’s $150 million athletic budget might help out other varsity sports.

Can UNC’s $150 million athletic budget offer some respite?

Well, UNC already operated in a revenue-sharing model based on the finances generated by football and men’s basketball, supporting other athletic programs as well. Now, on the heels of the House settlement, they will operate differently. “Football and basketball generate a lot of money, and we shared it with all of our teams,” Cunningham said. “So we are continuing to sponsor 28 teams, and we’re continuing to offer championship experiences. But for the commercial activity, I thought it was best to give it to those that generated it.”

For sure, due to the roster limits, they will have fewer student-athletes, but UNC is going to have more scholarships. “.With tuition remission that the state provides us, we can provide more scholarships to our Olympic sport programs than ever before, and that’s going to help sustain them,” he added. In the 2024-25 athletic year, the program supported 530 student-athletes with a mixed bag of partial and full scholarships. That amount is equivalent to the cost of funding 330 full rides.

Also, for the 2024-25 cycle, UNC had an athletic budget of $150 million, which is expected to notch up by an additional $30 million scoop for the next academic year. But not every program is financially robust. Josh Allen’s alma mater, Wyoming, could only scoop out $2.5 million. Whereas the Bay Area rivals might shake hands, given Cal’s financial precarity.