Dec 12, 2024; Chapel Hill, NC, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels new head coach Bill Belichick shakes hands with athletic director Bubba Cunningham at Loudermilk Center for Excellence. Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

AD Bubba Cunningham Reveals Revenue Sharing Split for UNC Athletics

Originally posted on North Carolina Tar Heels on SI
By Grant Chachere | Last updated Aug 15, 2025 11:33 AM ET

Revenue sharing is the latest change in college sports as Division I schools (Power 5 and those opting in) are now allowed to directly compensate student-athletes with up to roughly $20.5 million per year—approximately 22% of average athletic revenue.

For the 2025-26 fiscal year, UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham allocated about $13 million to football, $7 million to men’s basketball, and $250,000 each to baseball and women’s basketball — amounts reflecting last season’s revenue — and noting those figures will be revisited next year based on updated earnings.

How It Will Be Broken Up

While most are using the 75-15-5-5 model, Cunningham said the majority of the revenue sharing percentages are split with 65% for football and 35% for men’s basketball, with baseball and women’s basketball, respectively, receiving the rest.

“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,” Cunningham said on the Carolina Insider podcast Friday. “That is one way to do it, and a lot of schools are doing it that way. When I looked at how we generate commercial activity, that’s not the way ours is broken down. 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, women’s basketball is fourth.”

Cunningham said that UNC has already operated in a revenue-sharing model based mostly on the money that football and men’s basketball brought in to support other programs. But now with the House settlement, the division will operate differently for UNC’s athletic programs.

“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.”

“We’re going to have fewer student-athletes this year because of roster caps, but we’re going to have more scholarships. So thankfully, 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. So the commercial activity goes to those that generate it. The educational benefits are going to go to the sports that have been previously subsidized. So I think that was the fair way for Carolina to do it and remain competitive nationally.”

Cunningham said the payroll for the roster that women’s basketball head coach Courtney Banghart put together this season is 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.”

In the 2024-25 athletic year, UNC supported 530 student-athletes with a mix of full and partial scholarships, which together amounted to the equivalent cost of funding 330 full rides.

In June, the school said that UNC expects its athletic budget, which was $150 million in 2024-25, to increase by $30 million in the next academic year.

This athletic season will be Cunningham’s last as he will be replaced by former NASCAR executive Steve Newmark, and his first day was on Friday as the department’s executive associate athletics director. Newmark’s focus this year is on revenue related to football and men’s and women’s basketball as he settles into his new gig.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Tar Heels on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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