UNC's Lee Roberts defends AD Bubba Cunningham

In addressing budget shortfalls in athletics compared with other conferences

Trustees obviously have a right to the information

It's obviously a time of significant upheaval in college athletics

I'd be very surprised if there was any mismanagement let

alone malfeasance in our athletics department

They're audited routinely

They've been audited 10 times in the last five years

They're audited every year by the NCAA and I would

just add that our athletic director is one of the

most senior well respected well regarded admired athletic directors in

the country

He has broad respect from his peers and we don't

have a more capable more experienced more talented senior administrator

here at Carolina

Future remains in the AC C is the smart thing

to do

Otherwise of course moving forward amid that that chaos as

you talk about there's a lot up in the air

and my job and the athletic director's job and the

job of everyone in a leadership position here is to

make sure that when the dust settles Carolina is better

off

Uh Senator Berger uh when when he talked to us

a couple of weeks ago was counseling patience on the

whole question of conference realignment

And yet you have trustees who are actively saying that

you know that you know it's the administration just isn't

doing enough to pursue realignment

And you know I'm wondering how you square the circle

there

Well we're obviously very much aware of the conference realignment

dynamics

We have an AC C board meeting next week

There's just a lot in flux

We have litigation pending against the AC C by two

member schools

The PN television contract has a renewal period coming up

in February of next year there's a lot of discussion

about settlement of these nil cases across the country which

would have significant financial implications for all power five schools

And so given how much is is influx how much

is changing we just need to stay abreast of these

dynamics and make sure that we're doing that with the

best interest of Carolina and mine

And so and to follow up on that uh you

know regarding you know a you know conference realignment and

the you know the big four given the academic relationships

with Duke and Wake Forest that you know you know

that Carolina has how much do you all value maintaining

the athletic relationships that you know that have made them

the school is leading you know leading rival on the

field for decades

I think our fans value those those historic rivalries

I think people here value those historic rivalries

Those are an important consideration among many considerations as we

think about Carolina's future an important consideration among many doesn't

suggest they're any sort of priority

Well we have multiple priorities

Have you studied the house settlement the the outlines of

the house settlement and and you may be counted on

to vote on whether or not to accept the terms

of that settlement here in the next week

Do you have any idea which way you might be

leaning So II I don't think I can say very

much about settling pending litigation

There's obviously been a lot of discussion about that among

the AC C presidents and chancellors and of course around

the country more broadly I I do believe that um

most folks think settling the litigation is going to be

better than taking it through to a to a trial

and you would be ok with Carolina then sharing revenue

with students

I haven't heard any possible settlement that that doesn't involve

some kind of revenue sharing any of

that title nine is an important wild card in all

of these settlement conversations in the uh in the discussions

that I've heard there's a lot of uncertainty about how

any settlement would would affect title nine

Obviously it's an important legal obligation of ours

It's also uh uh an important obligation uh an important

commitment of ours away from our legal commitments

We have some of the best women's sports teams in

the country here at Carolina

And so our obligations under title nine are are crucial

to us

And I guess one of the things that that you

do well at Carolina has sponsored a broad number of

sports is revenue sharing impacts of budget that obviously some

people already have concerns about

Are you concerned that there could be I think it's

too early to say

I've certainly heard that speculation but would have to see

what the final settlement would look like if there is

if there is a settlement