UVA Football fans had probably heard that UNC will be paying Bill Belichick $10 million a year to coach the football team there.
You probably hadn’t heard what the school is giving Belichick for his staff.
When you do, in a minute, you’ll see that Carolina, which was already outspending UVA on the support staff by nearly $5 million a year before Belichick came on board, is about to enter another stratosphere in terms of its spending on its coaching and support staff.
ICYMI
- Bill Belichick is the new football coach at UNC: Trying to figure out why
- Scott German: UNC got it right with the Bill Belichick hire
- Radio: AFP editor Chris Graham talks Bill Belichick/UNC news on ‘Mark Moses Show’
I got this information direct from UNC Athletics, without even asking for it – which, gotta say this, lesson here for the folks at UVA Athletics.
The folks at UNC Athletics sent an email to its media list, which I’ve been on for years, at 4:44 p.m. on Thursday, with the message – “Many have asked for Coach Belichick’s term sheet” – and a link to said term sheet.
For reference, when Tony Bennett and Brian O’Connor signed contract extensions on June 13, I had to make requests under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to get access to the term sheets for each, which I did that day.
On June 21, the UVA FOIA office requested a seven-working-day extension to literally get me PDF copies of the two contracts.
I finally got them on July 2.
Nineteen days after asking for them.
And you wonder why I might come across as a hostile witness when it comes to covering UVA Athletics matters.
I’ve digressed.
Back to the story that I was wanting to tell about UNC playing big-boy football: so, they’re giving Belichick $10 million a year, another $10 million for his assistant coach salary pool, $1 million for his strength and conditioning staff, and $5.3 million for support staff, including funding for a new football GM position.
The total here: $26.3 million.
I submitted a FOIA request (of course I did) back on Dec. 2 to get copies of the contracts for UVA Football coach Tony Elliott’s staff – his assistant coaches, strength and conditioning staff and recruiting office.
What I got back on Dec. 6 added up, total, to $5.5 million.
Pair that with the $3.9 million that Elliott is due in compensation next year, and you’re in the area of $9.4 million.
I didn’t get anything back on the scouting, video and creative offices or Elliott’s grad assistants.
Putting another half-million total toward those annual compensation packages, we’re in the $10 million area.
Roughly 40 percent of what UNC is going to be spending on the coaching and support staff with Belichick leading things down there.
Now, you may be thinking here, the news with the UVA Football program, just last week, had some mysterious anonymous benefactor person committing an apparently obscene amount of money to football.
ICYMI
The numbers being bandied about behind the scenes keep changing, but the most recent set of numbers that I’m hearing, from a reliable source, is, $100 million to be paid out over 10 years, which works out, obviously, to $10 million a year.
Even if all of that were to go to Elliott for his staff, the problem there would be, aside from Terry Heffernan, the offensive line coach, his assistants are under contract through 2026, as is the strength and conditioning director, Adam Smotherman, so, more money isn’t going to help in the interim, aside from UVA Athletics funding a GM position, and maybe giving Elliott the ability to hire some more analysts, whatever help that might bring, there’s not much more he can do right now.
One other detail from the Belichick term sheet that is hard to get a 100 percent gauge on vis-à-vis UVA Football comes under the line item “revenue sharing.”
UNC Athletics, in its contract with Belichick, is committing $13 million to its football roster through revenue sharing.
Assuming that our mysterious anonymous benefactor person’s money is meant to go to the football players, and I do assume that, that, plus what UVA Athletics was already doing in terms of compensation, should mean we’re in the ballpark of what UNC is doing.
I’ll take that as the only good news to come out of this particular bit of reporting.
Video: UNC is playing big-boy football
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