The easy answer is both. However, let’s review where UNC sits financially at the moment.
We ran a $15 million deficit last cycle. Chancellor Lee Roberts insists it was a one-time thing, but it still indicates that we don’t have a reserve fund to handle new and unexpected expenses.
We just dropped $46+ million on a 4-8 football season. We’ve dropped $46+ million on the upcoming football season. We’ll drop $46+ million on a third football season unless this upcoming football season ends up like last
season, at which point the third season’s going to cost substantially more than $46+ million given all the buy-outs involved.
We just embarked on a new coaching search for men’s basketball, one that involves buying out current personnel, buying out incoming personnel, and funding the roster demands of the incoming coach.
UNC funds 28 varsity sports, and it’s serious about those. Alabama just lost its successful women’s basketball coach, Kristy Curry, to USF because it was the lowest funded women’s program in the SEC. That kind of thing won’t fly at UNC.
We haven’t landed in the SEC yet and won’t for awhile.
So: what would be your financial priorities? A new or renovated arena? A “money is no object” investment in UNC men’s basketball? Retaining enough financial flexibility to make a coaching change in football, if necessary?
“Hey, money doesn’t grow on trees!” That’s my mother, UNC school of nursing, barking in the background.
