Last year, we reported that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was subsidizing its athletics department with $21 million of other university funds even before it hired Bill Belichick as its head football coach. With athletic spending rising rapidly around the country, investing in football was meant to both keep up with the arms race and place the Tar Heels on firmer financial footing by bringing excitement, ticket sales, and media coverage.
Belichick’s second season kicked off last week with a win, albeit under a cloud of controversy, including the suspension of general manager Michael Lombardi and an investigation into name, image, and likeness deals. And it’s basically impossible to tell from public data whether UNC-CH’s bet is paying off financially.
Detailed financial information isn’t yet available for the last fiscal year—which includes Belichick’s first season as coach—nor is a complete picture of planned spending for this year. The information we do have makes it difficult to draw any overarching conclusion.
In the meantime, the university followed the rest of college athletics by continuing its spending spree, most visibly by hiring Michael Malone as head basketball coach in April.
Here is what we know, and what to watch as the season unfolds.
How much has Tar Heel spending increased since they hired Belichick?
The obvious place to start is with the current university budget the Board of Trustees approved in March, which is for the 2026-27 fiscal year that started in July. It projects athletics expenses of $184 million.
That is $2 million less than the university expected to spend in last year’s budget and $47 million higher than UNC-CH projected for 2024-25.
But the budget isn’t the whole story. Malone was hired after this year’s was approved, adding at least $7.5 million in spending. More importantly, the budget leaves out tens of millions of dollars in annual athletics spending by the university’s official booster, the Rams Club, which raises and donates money to the university that is earmarked for athletics.
UNC-CH discloses its actual spending in a report to the NCAA roughly six months after the fiscal year ends. In its 2024-25 report—the most recent one available—UNC-CH reported $188 million in expenses, over $51 million more than it budgeted that year. A relatively small portion of the discrepancy comes from unforeseen changes, like the impacts of postseason play. Another chunk stemmed from hiring Belichick, which happened after the budget was approved.
But the biggest difference is that UNC-CH only includes the Rams Club’s scholarships in its budget, leaving out things like operating and capital expenses the group funds. In fiscal year 2024-25, that amounted to $31 million, according to the Rams Club’s tax documents.
We’ll learn more about actual spending in Belichick’s first season when the 2025-26 NCAA report is available in January.
How much is the Rams Club bringing in?
Rams Club does not typically provide information about its fundraising goals or totals, so our best insight is tax records. Once again, the most recent filings available are for 2024-25, the year Belichick was hired, but when he hadn’t yet coached a game.
That year, donations to the Rams Club jumped $22 million, to $91 million in total. While the $48 million it donated to UNC-CH athletics was roughly flat from the year before (and down from $61 million in 2023), the nature of the support shifted. Contributions to capital projects like building renovations decreased, while basic operational support increased from $11 million to $22 million.
The likely explanation for the shift is revenue-sharing payments that are now made directly to players. Those didn’t actually start until 2026, but the university spent $14 million on upfront revenue-sharing costs in 2024-25.
The question now is how donors have responded to lackluster on-field results and off-field turmoil, including Lombardi’s investigation, his fundraising trips to Saudi Arabia, coverage of Belichick’s girlfriend Jordon Hudson, and even the football team’s driving habits. UNC-CH could delay capital projects if donations slow, but if it’s relying on the Rams Club for more of its operating expenses—like all the contracts players signed guaranteeing their new salaries—it has less flexibility.
We’ll learn more about that when the Rams Club files its 2025-26 taxes in May.
What about other revenue sources?
Though we can’t get a complete picture of UNC-CH finances, some back-of-the-envelope math shows how things are stacking up.
Since 2024-25, UNC-CH athletics has added at least an additional $23 million in expenses—$5 million from the full annual cost of Belichick’s salary, about $3 million in other football staff salaries, another $7.5 million in revenue sharing payments, and $7.5 million in Malone’s salary.
The revenue side is harder to pin down. The university touted the fact that every home football game sold out last year before the season started. A university spokesperson said those sales led to $8 million in additional revenue. UNC-CH has not released any information about this season’s sales yet, which may be a sign that they aren’t selling as well.
Media rights—the largest source of revenue after donations in 2024-25—is also a mixed bag. A new ACC deal means the most-watched teams could see a boost in earnings. UNC-CH is expected to be a major beneficiary, but football dominates the TV market and Tar Heel viewership fell off its expected growth during Belichick’s first season, so how much UNC-CH benefited is unclear.
More details will be available when the ACC’s 2025-26 tax returns are available in May.
But it’s also worth remembering that a particularly good—or bad—showing in football or a March Madness run could change the ticket sales and media rights revenue drastically.
Unfortunately for UNC-CH, it’s projecting declining revenue in another area. The 2026-27 budget shows a $7 million drop in other gifts and investments revenue available to athletics compared to last year. A university spokesperson did not respond to questions about the change for this story.
How much is the university subsidizing sports?
For decades, UNC-CH athletics has run on the same model: Football and men’s basketball generate enough revenue to support all of its other sports. But things haven’t been normal since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reported university support dropped from the $21 million high in 2023-24 to a more typical level of $2 million in 2024-25. But the athletic department ended that year with a $15 million deficit, which the university has to cover, so the end result is basically the same.
The university is exploring a number of changes to generate more money, like selling stadium naming rights and jersey ads. It might be hard to suss out how much those moves bring in.
The General Assembly exempted athletes’ sponsorship deals from public records laws in May, and now the Board of Trustees is considering whether to move parts of the athletics department’s intellectual property into a new, separate company. Administrators say it will speed up new revenue generation by taking over sponsorship deals and multimedia rights, among other things. The legal structure would add yet another entity into the mix—one that wouldn’t be subject to public records laws, either.
Even some of the trustees are worried about information flow.
At an August meeting discussing the proposal, Trustee Jim Blaine said he worried the board’s lack of direct oversight of the new company could cause an issue, citing difficulties with two other bodies structured similarly. One was the school’s independent alumni association, which former trustee and Belichick champion John Preyer once likened to a parasite. The other was the Rams Club.
The trustees’ desire for control has been a point of contention before, however. UNC System President Peter Hans limited their authority over athletics last year after they reportedly circumvented the athletic department’s hiring process to woo Belichick.
“Building on a partnership that dates back more than 85 years, the Rams Club and the Athletics Department have never worked more closely and been more integrated,” Athletic Director Steve Newmark and Rams Club Executive Director Seth Reeves said in a joint statement. “The changing landscape of college athletics has created more demand for revenue and development support, which makes this partnership more important than ever as we embrace the opportunities of an evolving collegiate model.”
In the meantime, a potential cost increase looms. The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on the Protect College Sports Act in September. Though it faces a tough road to become law, it has the backing of the White House. If it passes, it would more than double the amount of money colleges can pay players, from $21.3 million this year to $48.8 million. UNC-CH would likely boost revenue-sharing to stay competitive.
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