North Carolina had money to pay a basketball coach, just obviously didn’t think Hubert Davis was worth it.
UNC is committed to paying Michael Malone, who has never been a head coach at the college level, an average of $8.5 million a year over the next six years, despite running a $15 million athletics department deficit in the 2024-2025 academic sports year, per data from Sportico.
ICYMI
Davis, the guy Malone is replacing, was paid $3.85 million for his work in the 2025-2026 academic sports year.
Less than half.
Sure he’s not bitter.
Davis averaged 25 wins a year over his five-year tenure at his alma mater, and led Carolina to the national championship game in his first season as the head coach, in 2022.
His last two teams, though, failed to advance past the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Malone, for his part, led the Denver Nuggets to the 2023 NBA championship, but was fired on the eve of the 2025 playoffs despite having the Nuggets near the top of the Western Conference standings.
The athletics department can afford to pay him big money because men’s basketball actually turns a tidy profit at UNC – per Sportico, basketball turned a $22.9 million profit in the 2024-2025 academic sports year.
Notably, that was before the school hired Bill Belichick, at a rate of $10 million per year, to lead the football program, which went 4-8 in Belichick’s Year 1.
Football, in the 2024-2025 academic sports year, turned a $14.2 million profit at UNC.
The 2025-2026 financial data may actually show a slight boost in profitability for the football program, despite the lack of success on the field – with attendance up 5.9 percent, according to data from D1Ticker.com.
Those two being in the black a combined $37.3 million in 2024-2025, and the department still posting a $15 million loss, tells you how much the non-revenue sports are a drain.
That’s another column for another day.
Gifts for college basketball fans
- Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski
- The Back Roads to March: The Unsung Heroes of College Basketball Season
- Clear stadium tote bag with zipper
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Point here being, basketball is and always will be the bell cow at North Carolina.
That $8.5 million annual average for Malone’s salary should be enough to keep him from entertaining NBA job offers – that pay rate is very competitive with the NBA, where the median head coach salary is in the $7 million range.
To incentivize him not taking a peek at the NBA market, his contract calls for him to pay the school an $8 million buyout if he were to leave before April 1, 2027; $6.5 million if he were to leave before April 1, 2028; and $5 million if he were to leave before April 1, 2029.
On April 2, 2029, the buyout drops to $3.5 million.
That gives Carolina three years before they have to look for their next coach.
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Chris Graham
