It seems that Tar Heel fans aren’t really being sparked by the disinterested play of their football team. They are staying home and those empty seats cost Carolina some serious dollars. The projection is that they’ll lose out on about $600K in ticket revenue, plus whatever concessions that would have produced. One million bucks seems like a reasonable guess. Ouch. Even for a wealthy athletic program like UNC, that loss has to hurt. They rely on football and basketball to pay for all the other sports.
On top of those ticket losses, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Tar Heels won’t be traveling to any bowl games this year. That’s even more potential revenue down the toilet.
On the other side of the ledger, it seems that UNC is still the national leader in merchandising revenue. That’s pretty incredible when think that their football program has been mediocre to bad for six or seven years now and they haven’t won a hoops title in over a decade. It just goes to show the power of a few stars, namely Michael Jordan and Mia Hamm. Certainly Vince Carter and Marion Jones don’t hurt too much either.
When you put those two stories together, you see what Carolina expects (#1 in merchandise, which equals reputation) and what they are currently getting. Again, it doesn’t look to good for Coach Bunting.