I don't know where the money comes from, but why don't we have enough money to do the complete roster building we need to compete for a championship?
Too harsh?
I really like the players we've added. In the past there have been some headshakers, but I'm OK with all these portal guys. And yet I can't shake the feeling that they fall short of being contenders.
Some of us think another top player (or 2) or even a good backup (or 2) would make us a lot more competitive. Are they wrong?
Some of us think holding onto Drake and maybe Lubin, too, would make us a lot more competitive. Or adding comparable replacements. Are they wrong?
At the risk of earning the ire of those who believe in jinxes, what if Veesaar or Evans or Wilson aren't what we thought, or get injured?
Money might not be the whole solution, but in this wild west, it's certainly a huge part of the equation.
So . . . why isn't there more money?
Should we start a go fund me to finish the job that UNC started but doesn't seem willing/able to finish?
"So . . . why isn't there more money?"
I think that is a excellent question, the question I think is top of mind for most all UNC Fans now days. Best I have been able to put together is there are multiple fronts that have seemed to come together that have hit us pretty hard. I will try to piece it together for you but some is opinion (more than a guess) and some is what I consider fact.
1) As we know, we added Tanner really late in the game to be fully ready for the portal opening, Tanner has not even added staff yet, his group was some guys that came together to help us thru the portal.
2) WE lost a lot of our rep over this past season, especially the awful decision to have Hubert negotiating numbers by himself, we were suffering blow back this portal from the last portal.
3) 2 terms to get to know, portal discount and portal tax. You get a portal discount when a player is more willing to play for your program than any other program, example Seth or Hampton in football playing for us for half the money he could have got had he entered the portal. Tax is the extra money you have to pay a kid that does not yet see you as one of the programs he is drawn to. You get taxed for a lot of different reasons, they don't like your approach to offense or defense, they don't totally like the way you may use them, they didn't like the way your team played last season as just a few. We were being taxed pretty hard by a lot of guys we contacted thru the portal so we had to pay a bit more than some other programs.
4) UNC will not spend money that it does not have, some programs do and figure it out later.
5) Right now, the 2 areas that UNC uses to hit the $$$ kids are asking for is the collective and commercial ops, do a commercial for $$$. Example, Bacot and Jimmy's seafood. The commercial ops are down the road money, kids want it all available right now. Some kids don't want to do anything extra other than play ball for the commercial income deals, example the TEnn QB.
6) WE have an emerging additional stream that is in it's infancy now that my understanding is that George Lynch is very involved in to pull together former players in a similar way that duke has had now for several years from duke alums (not just players) that are in addition to their NIL collective. I have heard some talk about another such group coming together of former UNC alums, not players that may be forming to add to the players group.
7) A failure to use the resources we have with the Kenan Flagler business school to come up with creative and effective ideas to add to the pools of income. UGa for example is coming out with their own branded Bourban, many programs sel naming rights, we do none of that. Lets get those creative moinds at our world class business school working on this!
8) UNC is plotting to spend nearly a BILLION on a new arena while other programs are putting their money in to buy players, can we talk about priorities please?
9) WE have a head coach that many feel will not be with us past next season, a lot of players find that as a severe problem because it questions how much our staff will actually help them. Players see guys like Cadeau and Ian going to other programs and they feel we are not developing our talent, that our players are not happy.
10) PLayers see duke has 3 freshmen in the next NBA lotto and UNC has 1 guy that may fall to the second round and we get taxed hard for that.
11) Rev share has not kicked in
12) There are simply a LOT of boosters that refuse to put their money in as long as Hubert is our coach. They felt he was a bad hire when he got the job and will not spend their money until Hubert is gone. They simply do not like that our basketball program was handed over to a rookie and they are in stone with their opinion.
13) Then there is Mike, he does not like paying players to play college ball, there is absolutely nothing that he likes about it and has said several times that he will not spend his money on NIL, several are working on him, maybe one day but not today.
This is off the top of my head, I may have missed a factor or 2 but think I have given you most of the factors that have us limited as compared to some other programs.
