The Univ. of North Carolina will officially transition from longtime AD Bubba Cunningham to new AD Steve Newmark on July 1, though “in practicality, it’s already happened,” according to Shelby Swanson of the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER. Newmark has “already taken on an increasingly prominent voice -- speaking for the department in press releases, guiding internal discussions, settling into the chair he’ll officially claim this summer.” This spring, when UNC “made a consequential late push in its men’s basketball coaching search,” it was Newmark “who got on the plane.” In many ways, ADs “cut from Cunningham’s cloth are becoming a hallmark of the past.” While Duke’s groundbreaking Amazon deal “sparked some discussion among the ADs gathered” for the ACC’s spring meetings last week, Newmark was “already exploring similar options for UNC.” Newmark spoke about “maximizing the value of North Carolina’s program” and about “generating enough revenue to support the rising costs in college sports’ ever-inflating arms raise.” Though Cunningham plans to step back from daily operations, he will “remain a resource for Newmark -- a sounding board for decisions that extend beyond the scoreboard.” Under a contract extension that runs through July 2029, Cunningham will “move into a senior advisor role reporting to Chancellor Lee Roberts” -- a position “designed to leverage his institutional reach beyond day-to-day athletics” (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 5/26).
MODEL JUSTIFIED: Cunningham this week appeared on the “Carolina Insider Podcast” and believes the school’s current 28-sport structure remains “viable” and, more so, is “necessary.” He said, “The Olympic movement depends on schools like Carolina, depends on schools in the Big 10 and the former Pac 12. ... The country doesn’t invest in Olympic sports, universities do. And universities do it because sport is part of the educational experience -- not just for the ones that play, but for everybody here. I think we’ve lost sight of that. We’ve gotten caught up into the marketing rights and the rights of students and collective bargaining and things like that. We need to take a step back and think about how does it fit in today’s environment? Do we want to stay tethered to education?” He also address the long-term home for UNC, suggesting that the ACC remains a “viable place” for the school. Cunningham: “We have to look at all the options that are out there as they come across. But I do think that the new revenue sharing models that we have, the more successful you are in football and basketball, the more viewership you have, the more money you have. So it closes the gap for a lot of schools in our league, closes the gap for us this year on some of our competitors. So I think that’s a good step. Should there be more consolidation? Obviously the university has to be prepared for that. Is there another division within Division I? We would be prepared for that” (“Carolina Insider Podcast,” 5/26).
