Yesterday, Inside Carolina reported that UNC surpassed the $14 million mark when it comes to how they are paying the 2025-26 roster. This number is allegedly triple what it was just a year ago, which as I mentioned earlier, provides us with our window into what was actually being spent on players. When dividing $14 million by three, the number you get is $4,666,666.66.
It’s not perfect math, but the point is that the program was dramatically under-funded compared to what we understood to be the financial offerings of other programs. Not a great way to stay in elite company, and it sounds like the school finally put two and two together.
Greg Barnes also reported that Jim Tanner is being paid an $850,000 salary for his general manager role, which is another area of modernization for Carolina. Hubert Davis badly needed someone to handle some of the more unfamiliar parts of the current college basketball landscape, and Tanner has come in to be that guy.
He also played a heavy hand in landing recent commit Luka Bogavac via his commitment to seek out international prospects, and the money the school is now pumping into the program helps a lot in making that happen.
So, aside from the obvious, what does all of this mean for Carolina basketball moving forward? I think it means a few things: the first thing that it means is that the legendary college basketball program is remembering that it is indeed a legendary college basketball program. Banking on players to commit because of the tradition and Carolina family aspect of things has become unrealistic whether we like it or not, and instead they have needed to keep up with the times in order to stay competitive. On paper, they should not be a lot more competitive, though it remains to be seen how much more competitive compared to some of the other top-tier programs in the country.
The other thing that this means is that moving forward, there aren’t anymore excuses for Hubert Davis. Let me be clear, though: I am not saying that money wasn’t a problem for him to this point. I think the reason that UNC has been up and down has been a number of things, but money is definitely one of said things.
However, with a new general manager and a lot more money to play with, Hubert Davis can focus a lot more on improving the on-court product. Will the improvement be instant? It’s hard to say, but I do think that the 2025-26 roster has a lot of promise. What I do know, though, is that as far as fans are concerned, this is pretty much it.
If this team barely makes the NCAA Tournament one more time, there will likely be people showing up to his office for him. To level set, nobody is saying that the expectation is to make the Final Four every year, but having to sweat out Joe Lunardi’s updates anymore than we already have will likely break quite a few people, including myself.
All and all, I am just glad that the basketball program is getting more money after the school threw so a bunch of money into football. It would’ve been infuriating for them to lose sight on the premier program on campus thanks to a Super Bowl winning coach that may or may not be a good college football coach. I digress, what do you think of Carolina basketball’s new financial situation? Let us know in the comments below.
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