The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill formally introduced Bill Belichick as its head football coach at a Thursday press conference after negotiating a $50 million contract over five years.

It’s Belichick’s first time coaching college football after 24 years with the New England Patriots of the National Football League. He led the Patriots to nine Super Bowl appearances and six victories, and won an additional two championships as an assistant coach with the New York Giants for an NFL-record of eight Super Bowl wins. He started his pro coaching career as an assistant with the then-Baltimore Colts in 1975.

UNC announced the decision on Wednesday. Belichick is replacing Mack Brown, who was fired from the head coach position last month.

“I’ve always wanted to coach in college football, and it just never really worked out,” Belichick said. “I had some good years in the NFL, so that was okay, but this is really a dream come true.”

The allows for a salary of $10 million each year, a colossal, but far from unprecedented, amount for college football. Only seven college football coaches made more than $10 million in 2024. Belichick becomes the highest paid state employee in North Carolina history.

It’s double the salary Brown earned during his final season at UNC.

The university also reportedly agreed to increase its NIL — name, image, and likeness — package for football from $4 million to $20 million while recruiting Belichick, according to .

“As I’ve said many times, we want to be the best public university in the United States, and that means excellence in everything we do,” UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts said. “We want to compete with the best, and we’ve hired the best coach.”

Although the final two years on his contract are not guaranteed, there are opportunities for bonuses of up to $3.5 million annually. Belichick also receives benefits like membership to the Chapel Hill Country Club.

Earlier in the day, the university’s board of trustees voted to approve the terms of employment for Belichick and women’s soccer coach Damon Nahas during a closed session.

The UNC System Board of Governors University Personnel Committee and the full board held back-to-back emergency meetings Thursday, discussing the contract in closed sessions.

Neither group officially revealed what they discussed, but one member congratulated Chancellor Roberts.

“Thank you to everyone, especially to Chancellor Roberts and his team, and we’re very excited for you,” Chair Wendy Murphy said.

Certain terms of coaches’ contracts require the approval of the UNC System president and the Board of Governors, according to .

“The Board of Governors does not approve the final contract, but did authorize certain proposed terms, as required by policy, prior to the institution executing the contract,” spokesperson Andy Wallace wrote to NC Newsline in an email.

Asked at Thursday’s press conference if in this new era of revenue sharing and player compensation, it was financially sound for the university to commit so much to football and men’s basketball (head men’s basketball coach Hubert Davis is paid just under $3 million in total compensation), athletic director Bubba Cunningham said he believed in this strategic investment.

“I think if you go all in on those two sports, those two sports provide all of the finances for the rest of the department,” said Cunningham. “The more successful we are on football, the more successful we are on basketball, the more opportunities we’re going to be able to provide for everyone else here. So, I’m delighted with it. And I think our future is incredibly bright.”

While others have expressed some concerns about the high-profile hire and where the football program may be headed, the 72-year-old coach sought to allay those fears.

“Excited for the opportunity to build and develop young student-athletes, young men, and prepare them for their life, either in the NFL or professionally. But the lessons they learn will be professional lessons,” Belichick said.

Building a more professional program will cost the university and its donors more money.

The contract also stipulates the university will work in good faith with the new head coach to contract with a general manager for the football program for a duration that matches that of Belichick at a compensation level not to exceed $1.5 million. Multiple media outlets have reported Michael Lombardi, who has worked for several NFL teams, will hold that position at UNC.

The Tar Heels last won a football conference championship in 1980. After a 6-6 season, they’ll face the UConn Huskies in Boston’s Wasabi Fenway Bowl on Dec. 28.

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For four years, Stanford student Liam Anderson has gone to what he calls his “full-time job.” He puts on his uniform, laces up his shoes and just runs. As captain of the Stanford track and field team, the public policy major has put in 20 to 40 hours of running, conditioning and physical therapy each week — a pace he’ll continue when he returns to campus this fall to pursue his master’s degree.

It’s a lot of time away from academics, with little financial reward, which is partly why Anderson has been supporting and advising California lawmakers on  that could dramatically alter college athletes’ compensation.  

“This is the only labor market where the primary labor input — the players — receive essentially zero compensation from their employers,” Anderson said.  “It is very difficult on a philosophical level to argue that these players do not deserve some form of compensation. To say a scholarship is enough is laughable.”

, or the College Athlete Protection Act, would require California colleges to put some of their sports revenue into a fund that would pay student athletes when they complete their degrees.  Athletes could earn as much as $25,000 for each year they participate in their sport.  

But the bill has been controversial. Last week, its author, Assemblymember , put it on hold until next year after opponents — including the University of California, California State University and Team USA — argued it would further prioritize men’s basketball and football, causing campuses with tight athletic budgets to divert resources away from less lucrative sports. .

Supporters say the first-in-the-nation bill, which the state Senate could take up again as early as January, bolsters athletes’ rights by giving them a cut of the revenue they generate. It’s the latest flashpoint in the debate over student athlete compensation, in which California has .

As written, the bill would also require colleges to comply with a variety of health and safety standards, including paying all out-of-pocket health care costs for athletes injured on the field, and providing players with financial and life skills training. Sports agents seeking to represent student athletes would need to be certified by the state. A 21-member panel appointed by the Legislature and governor, with seats set aside for former college athletes, would oversee compliance.

The degree completion fund, however, has drawn the most attention since it would be a further blow to the amateurism model in college sports. California already catalyzed change within the NCAA when it  to make money off their name, image and likeness. NCAA policy now permits athletes to sign endorsement deals, but that money comes from private sponsors rather than the universities themselves. Athletes receiving it would be eligible for the degree completion funds, too.

Combined, California’s 26 Division I schools earned  in fiscal year 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That includes media contracts, ticket sales, investment interest income, student activity fees and alumni contributions.

“Revenue is being generated. There are TV rights that are being negotiated for someone to make a lot of money, and it is not the student athlete,” said Holden, a Pasadena Democrat who played college basketball for San Diego State from 1978 to 1982. 

“This is an opportunity to really recognize the kind of sacrifices that many of these athletes put on the line on behalf of universities and the NCAA, institutions that make billions of dollars,” Holden added. 

Money for the degree completion fund would come from a university’s existing athletic revenue. Beginning in 2024, if an athletic department makes more annual revenue than it did in the 2021-22 academic year, the difference would be deposited in the fund. Athletes’ payments would depend in part on how much revenue their sport generates and how much their team already gives out in athletic grants.

Football and men’s basketball make up a majority of revenue brought in by athletic departments, and some of those funds currently go to subsidize other sports. That caused some supporters of those lower-revenue sports — such as swimming and volleyball — to worry that the bill would sap much-needed funding from their programs. 

“If schools do not have the budget to fund sports, they will cut sports,” says an open letter from Women’s Sports Foundation CEO Danette Leighton to Holden. “If this were the case, we know from history that women’s sports and men’s Olympic sports would be among the first to be cut.”

Of the 21 NCAA Division I sports, 19 will be contested at either the 2024 Summer Olympics or 2026 Winter Olympics. 

After initial concerns that the bill would violate Title IX by threatening the funding of women’s sports teams, lawmakers added an amendment to split the allocation of degree completion funds 50/50 between female and male college athletes.  

Some opponents, however, still weren’t convinced. 

“It’s great that (payments) would go towards some women, but if it becomes infeasible for schools to then support the programs at all, then we’re not really ahead of where we started,” said Maya Dirado, a Stanford graduate and Olympic gold medalist in swimming.

Elise Byun, a UC Berkeley gymnast and member of the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, said she believes that NCAA athletes should be financially compensated by their college beyond athletic grants. However, she said the bill as written could jeopardize funding for non-revenue and Olympic sports, as well as programs like mental health counseling that would benefit all athletes. 

“If the revenue that’s being taken is just giving back to football and basketball, we can’t advance the student athlete experience,” Byun said. “There’s no money left over to help bring up everyone.”

Also, the bill would not benefit athletes like Byun, who is not on scholarship, because degree payments would only go to those who receive an athletic grant. Division II, Division III and community college athletes would also be ineligible. 

The University of California and California State University also raised concerns. 

“The bill’s revenue sharing framework also would create broader inequities among our student athletes, as support for non-revenue sports would likely decrease and disproportionately impact women’s programs,” said Hazel Kelly, a CSU spokesperson. “This one-size-fits-all proposal is not appropriate for the broad diversity of size, scope and competitiveness that are the hallmarks of the CSU’s athletic programs.”  

Holden said athletic departments shouldn’t be worried about losing money for different programs because the degree completion fund doesn’t tap the department’s total budget, just the “excess” revenue generated above 2021-22 levels. The bill also prohibits schools from cutting athletic programs that were in place in the 2021-22 academic year.  

“So we have provisions in it to protect all programs within the athletic department  — men’s and women’s sports, from NCAA Division I football all the way to the rugby players who happen to be on a team if you have a rugby program — so that those programs would be maintained,” he said.

The next frontier in the debate over athletes’ rights

Holden declined further comment on why he had chosen to delay the bill, or the specifics of its formula for funding degree payments. The bill had been scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education Committee on July 5, but was pulled from the agenda that day and has become a “two-year bill,” meaning it can be considered in the second year of California’s two-year legislative session. That’s a common move by lawmakers who want more time to negotiate details of legislation and sway opponents.

While the bill likely faces a long road, its passage could further cement California’s status as a pioneer on college athlete compensation.

Mark Nagel, a professor of sport and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina, said that similar institutional blowback to college athletics reform has been seen before in the past and that prior concerns haven’t really materialized. 

“There’s always the idea that college athletics say that any change is going to cause the sky to fall and the world to end,” Nagel said. “We’ve already seen that, whether it’s high-, mid- or low-level programs, Division I universities and colleges have figured out ways to find that money.”

But Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College, said that universities making direct payments to athletes beyond scholarships creates a variety of financial issues because there are Division I schools whose athletic departments run on deficits.

“When they lose money, the school has to raise tuition, it has to raise athletic fees, it has to go to the state legislature for more subsidies, it has less money to provide for the education of the athletes. On all of those grounds, it’s a very problematic proposal,” Zimbalist said. 

A previous legislative attempt to establish a mandatory degree completion fund for athletes failed in 2022. The current bill passed the California Assembly before heading to the Senate. 

The National College Players Association, one of the forces behind California’s push to allow athletes to sign paid endorsement deals, is co-sponsoring the degree completion fund bill, and the California Labor Federation supports it. 

“Athletes throughout the state of CA would gain unprecedented and much needed protections, freedoms and rights.  Every athlete will benefit if AB 252 is approved,”  NCPA President Ramogi Huma said in an email.

CalMatters politics reporter  contributed to this story. This story and other higher education coverage are supported by the College Futures Foundation.

This story was originally published by .