UNC Spent $104,464 Per Athlete - Low by Comparison

Posted on Oct. 1, 2014

UNC’s Department of Athletics spent $104,464 per varsity athlete in 2013-14, which puts Carolina in the lowest quartile among four comparison groups.

Athletics generated $83 million in revenues for the year, more than most ACC schools but less than schools in the Big 10 Conference, those that participate in the national Directors’ Cup sports success competition and UNC’s official peer institutions.

The report says that athletics generated $57,000 in revenues over expenses and that the department’s spending increased over the previous year at a rate lower than total University spending. Carolina is in the first and second quartiles compared with the other four groups.

A wide range of statistics is part of new annual reporting requirements for UNC System universities that were presented to the trustees in September. The UNC System requires its schools to submit detailed data on finances, academic activities of athletes, progress on implementing academic integrity policies, and relationships between athletics departments and booster clubs.

According to the report, 90 percent of the department’s revenues are self-generated through ticket sales, private gifts, licensing and television receipts. A $279 annual student fee generates 8.8 percent.

The report includes several academic measures for UNC’s nearly 800 athletes:

• Of 163 freshmen entering in 2013, the University admitted one, a tennis player, as an exception to UNC System minimum course requirements and four (two in football, one in basketball and one in swimming and diving) exceptions to minimum admissions requirements;
• The six-year graduation rate (those entering in 2007) was 73 percent for athletes, compared with 90 percent among all students;
• The average cumulative grade point average in spring 2014 was 2.95 for athletes, 3.21 for students who were not athletes and 3.2 for all undergraduates.

In the wake of findings of widespread academic irregularities in the former Department of African and Afro-American Studies — the subject of an ongoing investigation — the University is taking a closer look at classes in which certain groups such as athletes tend to “cluster.”

Provost James Dean told the trustees that his office examined 201 class sections in which athletes made up at least 20 percent of enrollment in the fall and spring and 30 percent in the summer. The report said “no irregularities” were found.

The complete report is available online.

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