By Brian Murphy, WRAL

The UNC Board of Trustees approved an audit of the school’s athletic department Monday morning amid concerns and anger over the Tar Heels’ revenue, management and changes to college sports.

The board plans to meet about athletics in closed session during its meetings Wednesday and Thursday. It approved a top line of $134.97 million for the department as part of its all-funds budget that is due to the Board of Governors this week, but demanded further discussion with athletics director Bubba Cunningham.

“I think it’s imperative for the board to hear all of this in closed session,” chairman John Preyer said during a special meeting Monday. “I don’t think they understand the level of bad data that has been provided, and I think it is incumbent on us to get it right.”

Trustee Jen Evans said the athletic department submitted a preliminary budget proposal with a $17 million deficit for the 2024-25 academic year and $100 million in cumulative deficits moving forward.

“With no plans to address that, to mitigate that,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to think we’re talking in code. There are real issues here, a real concern that one of the most valuable assets and something that really generates revenue is not being managed properly. That is the need for the question and answer and that is the need for the audit.”

Trustee Ralph Meekins defended Cunningham, saying that the deficits were forecast during COVID because the school did not cut programs.

“I don’t appreciate the comments and inferences that the athletic director has not been forthcoming and available when we want to talk to him,” Meekins said.

Cunningham and other athletic department personnel are in Florida for the ACC’s Spring Meetings. He told WRAL on Monday night that he would attend Thursday’s board meeting in Chapel Hill.

Cunningham has been the Tar Heels’ athletic director since 2011. UNC has won more than 20 national titles in that time and had sustained success in a variety of sports. Cunningham, 62, previously served as the athletic director at Tulsa. He will be the chairman of the NCAA men’s basketball selection committee in 2025.

UNC had $139.3 million in total operating revenues in 2023 and $139.0 in total operating expenses. The revenue included $5 million in direct institutional support, nearly $8 million in student fees and more than $1.8 million in indirect institutional support.

Trustee Dave Boliek, a former chairman, said after the meeting there was an “imbalance in the budget” that required shifting dollars from other fund balances to cover the cost of athletics. He said the board hasn’t been given a strategy on how UNC will move forward.

“Carolina’s ability to maintain excellence at a high level is going to require really prudent budgeting and revenue models and potential cost cutting,” Boliek said. “A lot of it is due to the revenue or lack there of of revenue that we’re not receiving from the ACC deal.”

The ACC distributes about $40 million per school to its member institutions. But the SEC and Big Ten are projected to distribute up to $70 million in coming years due to growing media rights agreements. The two leagues will receive more money than the ACC each year of the new College Football Playoff.

“It’s not something you can chance with the snap of a finger,” Boliek said. “It’s something we’ve got to be cognizant of. We can’t sit back and cross our fingers and pray for pennies from heaven and thinking everything is going to ‘work out.’ We have to actively pursue what’s in the best interests of Carolina athletics.”

Florida State and Clemson have sued the ACC seeking to lessen their fees and penalties for leaving the league.

Boliek said he wants UNC to join a higher-revenue league.

“I am advocating for that,” he said. “That’s what we need to do. We need to do everything we can to get there. Or the alternative is the ACC is going to have to reconstruct itself. I think all options are on the table.”

Preyer told WRAL in March that the ACC was failing its top schools, including North Carolina.

“The conference is not acting as if it is representing the best interests of the member schools including the top tier of those schools – Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina,” Preyer said.

“Instead, it is acting at the expense of those schools to prop up the bottom tier of the conference in a way that I think is a gross abdication of responsibility. And I lay that at the feet of the commissioner.”

Source: wralsportsfan.com