Bill Belichick’s arrival in Chapel Hill led people to think UNC football would see better days under him. The administration hoped to see the change happen not only in the field, but also on the ledgers. The veteran coach came with some pre-planned strategies for the program, which are now set to be put into motion after the House settlement. But UNC, in its zeal to only highlight the high-profile sports, is causing women’s basketball to take blows.The House settlement is seeing colleges scramble to reorganize their funding for sports. The usage of the 20.5 million allocated to schools is up to their discretion. UNC is going with the flow of all other programs, dividing that fund among student athletes, Bubba Cunningham wrote in a public letter. Per the norm, UNC is going to allocate more funds to football and men’s basketball: the two sports that will guarantee UNC’s presence in the national scenario. Cunningham highlights these two as “revenue-generating sports.” Along with that, he writes that women’s basketball and baseball will receive “some revenue share.”UNC still hasn’t released the exact portions of each of these sports. But Bill Belichick’s term sheet from the time of his hiring in December allocates $13 million for Tar Heels football. It is less than the 75% share that most other programs are expecting to employ. That leaves $7.5 million for the rest of the sports to use. Men’s basketball will now take priority, and will expectedly take a good share out of the remaining figure. In essence, women’s basketball and other sports will take a hit. Many experts feared that this would happen country-wise, and also suspected that some sports might even be axed from programs.NCAA, College League, USA Basketball: La Salle at North Carolina Dec 14, 2024 Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA North Carolina Tar Heels head football coach Bill Belichick during half time at Dean E. Smith Center. Chapel Hill Dean E. Smith Center North Carolina USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xBobxDonnanx 20241214_bsd_sd2_0252Urban Meyer voiced the same concern. “I just hope women’s sports don’t go away. Olympic sports are in danger, man. Both my girls played college sports, and you take away college volleyball from my daughters, that’s a game changer.” Among women’s sports, basketball will likely take the bigger share. But that’s only after football goes away with 75% of the $20.5 million, and leaves the rest up for grabs. More Title IX lawsuits were expected to come through. That is something that is already happening: 8 female athletes have once again taken the NCAA to court. They argue that the $2.8 billion allocated for players disallowed to profit off NIL is discriminatory and adds to the disparity in women’s sports.UNC, on the other hand, is primed to rope in more money with newer sources of revenue.UNC is adopting new methods of revenue generation“You name it, we’re trying to turn over every rock and find new ways to drive revenue through athletics and the football program,” said Rick Barakat, UNC’s new chief revenue officer. The school now projects a 30% bump in budgets, which currently stands at a whopping 150 million. According to him, a sale of the Kenan Stadium’s naming rights can likely be up for distribution.Bubba Cunningham indicated that UNC is moving away from its “conservative” methods of revenue generation. “Do you go to hard liq**r, do you do more signs? Do you do more naming rights? Are we going to get to jersey patches? Can we create digital content or any other kind of content that we can monetize and sell to fans? There’s things that we haven’t done in the past; it’s just we didn’t feel like we needed to do,” the AD said. Think of this new era as that of Colorado’s newfound life under Deion Sanders. Can Cunningham hope to see a ’Bill Belichick’ effect at Chapel Hill, too?Belichick accepted the HC job at North Carolina in part for the power he’d be able to exercise. His arrival means that football takes precedence suo moto, above any other sport the college offers. But Cunningham also has to worry about how this will affect other sports, particularly those of women. The coming years will determine whether football and men’s basketball become the only sports defining UNC’s athletic identity or whether there’s still room for equitable growth across the board.The post UNC’s $13M Pledge To Bill Belichick Put Women’s Basketball Athletes in Jeopardy appeared first on EssentiallySports.