The University of North Carolina is the latest Power 5 athletics department to announce deep spending cuts in an attempt to close the gap between revenue and expenses in a year with reduced revenue from football.
The school says that they are projecting a loss of between $30 million and $52 million in projected revenue related to challenges presented by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, including loss of revenue from ticket sales, sponsorship and television revenue, conference distributions and concessions sales.
This loss comes in spite of the ACC being one of 3 Power 5 conferences that are planning to play football this fall. FBS football’s first games of the season were played on Thursday evening, with the ACC planning to begin play next Thursday, September 10.
North Carolina will kick off their season on September 12 at noon against Syracuse.
The University of Michigan, which currently is not planning on playing football this season, though that situation is evolving, similar cost-savings moves this week came with a projection of $100 million of revenue.
Cost Savings Measures Implemented:
- Cutting sport budgets by 10% for 2020-2021
- Implemented a spending freeze
- Halted non-essential travel
- Left 17 full-time open positions in the department unfilled.
- Coaches and staff members making $200,000 or more will have their salaries reduced by 20 percent,
- Coaches and staff members making $100,000 to $200,000 will have their salaries reduced by 10 percent, and
- Coaches and staff members who make less than $100,000 will be furloughed for 15 days.
The salary reductions and furloughs will begin on October 1 and remain in effect until June 30, 2021.
According to public records, first year head coach Mark Gangloff had a salary of $150,000 last season. Presuming that salary didn’t jump too drastically for year 2, that will leave him in the 10% pay cut reduction.
All Swimming & Diving Coaches’ Salaries, based on 2019:
- Head Coach Mark Gangloff, $150,000 (Reduction: $12,000
- Associate Head Coach Jack Brown: $77,500 (Reduction: 15 day furlough)
- Head Diving Coach Yaidel Gamboa: $75,000 (Reduction: 15 day furlough)
- Assistant Coach Michael Baric: $42,840 (Reduction: 15 day furlough)
- Assistant Coach Allyson Sweeney: $45,000 (Reduction: 15 day furlough)
- Director of Operations Hunter Hojnacki: $40,000 (Reduction: 15 day furlough)
Note: presumes equal pay throughout the year, with salary reductions applying to only the last 75% of the fiscal year.
A furlough is, in essence, a mandatory unpaid vacation. During a furlough, employees are not paid, but they retain benefits like health insurance, where applicable.
The program also lists Rafael Ortiz and Eli Danson as volunteer assistants. While volunteers aren’t paid and, in theory, won’t be directly impacted, they could help fill the gaps on-deck left by the mandatory furloughs to other staff members.
“This was not an easy decision,” UNC Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham said in announcing the moves. “Our coaches and staff work diligently each day to ensure that our student-athletes have the best experience possible, and their dedication makes Carolina a truly special place. This was also a necessary decision, because we must do everything we can to provide as many opportunities as possible for student-athletes in the future.
“Unfortunately, these reductions will not cover our projected losses in revenue in 2020-21. As we move forward, I will continue to work with Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, Rams Club Executive Director John Montgomery and others to find additional ways to address our financial challenges and prepare for the future.”
Cunningham, who in 2019 had an annual salary of $747,844.40, will be among those hit the deepest by the cuts. Based on his 2019 salary, he’ll see a reduction of pay of over $112,000.
UNC has a unique situation where 2 of their football assistant coaches are actually paid more in salary than their head coach Mac Brown, though this doesn’t include things like bonuses, benefits, or outside money earned.
Athletics’ Highest Paid Coaches & Staff, 2019:
- Assistant Football Coach Philip Longo – $900,000
- Assistant Football Coach Clyde Bateman – $900,000
- Head Football Coach Mac Brown – $750,000
- Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham – $747,844.40
- Head Men’s Basketball Coach Roy Williams – $595,409
- Assistant Football Coach Tommy Thigpen – $550,000
- Assistant Football Coach Stacy Searels – $506,000
- Head Strength & Conditioning COach Brian Hess – $500,000
- Assistant Football Coach Jovan Dewitt – $500,000
- Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach Steve Robinson – $475,000
In Gangloff’s first season as head coach, the North Carolina women placed 4th at the ACC Championships, while the North Carolina men placed 7th.
Roy Williams makes much more than what is listed above He earns $595K about every two months. :).
Roy Williams also donated $600K to the UNC athletic department to help fund scholarships for spring sport athletes whose seasons got cut short.
I know the financial situation is difficult for athletic departments currently. I am happy reading an article like this compared to William and Mary. It can’t be easy to tell your entire athletic department that they are getting pay cuts and leaving positions open. I appreciate the school making the decision to have all staff and programs share some of the strain this season. I hope more schools will look at reducing expenses from salaries and travel before eliminating programs.
College coaches may want to consider proactively taking pay cuts and making budget cuts to ensure the future of college swimming. They are making good money, just a suggestion to get out in front of these fiscal issues.
Lots maybe most already have.
So assistant football coaches make 900,000 which is more than the head coach and AD at 750,000???
$750,000 is his base salary. I think his total compensation is somewhere around $3.5 million annually.
That’s capitalism
Yep, if it were socialism he’d make $30k like all of us and we’d have to wait in lines for bread to be thrown from a truck.
I was surprised that the assistant coach also made more than Roy Williamson. NC is known for its basketball more than anything else and Roy is a big name coach.
These are base salaries paid by the university, mind you. There are many other revenue streams like bonuses and money from boosters. It’s not clear that those things are impacted by this move based on the press release, though.
Do we really need to publish these coaches personal details like salaries like this? It’s bad enough what they are going through but I feel like this just feels wrong.
This is public information that can be looked up by anyone. It is a public university.
I get it being public info but like can’t you just link to where you can find that info rather then puts peoples business out there like that. At least add a layer of people to have to try to find it rather then giving out it.
Better to have reductions in salary or furlough than to be out of work like millions of Americans. Perhaps you could focus on those people – Like buying some food for starving children.