Revenue sharing is one of the most popular storylines in all of college athletics.
Since the House Settlement came to fruition, the talk surrounded how the funding for each school would be allocated. Based on the settlement, here's how the distribution is set up:
75%- Football
15%- Men's Basketball
5%- Women's basketball
5%- Others
Now, each school has the right to split their funding as they wish. That's an important aspect to remember.
On Friday, Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham made an appearance on the Carolina Insider Podcast, hosted by Jones Angell and Adam Lucas. During his appearance, he spoke about sharing revenue specifics, noting that two programs would receive the bulk of the funding.
Here's the revenue sharing plan that Cunningham revealed (although he did mention that the University of North Carolina did not exceed 100%, even though this breakdown indicates that as the case):
65%- Football
35%- Men's Basketball
5%- Baseball and Women's Basketball
Cunningham went into detail as to why North Carolina elected not to follow the strategic guideline set out by the House Settlement:
“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. 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.”
With $20.5 million dollars to share with student-athletes this upcoming academic year, the funding that will be distributed is as follows:
Football- $13 Million
Men's Basketball- $7 Million
Baseball- $250,000
Women's Basketball- $250,000
Cunningham (and North Carolina's) approach seems to be a simple one: share the revenue with the programs who are bringing in the most commercial activity/revenue.
Of course, there will be plenty of debates across the country as to how the revenue sharing should be allocated. Over time, expect things to chance (as they always do), but for now, Cunningham and North Carolina have put together the best plan that they believe is fair for the university moving forward.