Nine straight trips to the NCAA tournament. A national title in 1994. Four straight ACC titles from 2005-08. By any standard, North Carolina’s women’s basketball program is one of the most successful in the nation.
But in the 2008-09 season, the program spent $1.86 million more than it brought in — a larger deficit than any other sport at UNC.
As North Carolina tries to straddle the line between big-money sports and a broad-based athletics program, the department is caught in a nationwide arms race of spending.
The Numbers
$2.45 million in expenses for women’s basketball for 2008-09
$585,021 in revenue in 2008-09
$27,102 in expenses per player — more than any other non-revenue sport
The price of success
