Bubba Cunningham's New Role at UNC Will Further Focus on Carolina North

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Plans to involve Bubba Cunningham in North Carolina’s vision for Carolina North were made official in Cunningham’s newly signed contract released this week.

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Per the contract, signed by the UNC athletic director on Aug. 1, Cunningham will move into a senior advisor role beginning July 1, 2026. The first point listed in his set of responsibilities on the contract is “overseeing the development of the Carolina North project — planning, funding, and execution of construction of major facilities.”

“I’ll continue to work with the chancellor (Lee Roberts), but as I said, we’re going to have to do something with basketball in the next few years, and I think I can be helpful in that area,” Cunningham told a group of local reporters last month when asked about the development of Carolina North. “And if that’s where he wants me to focus my time, then I’ll be happy to do it, whether it’s on campus or somewhere else. But I do think, having been in college athletics for a long time with coaches, I understand what the needs are for a program. Having been all around the country, seeing what different facilities look like and how they fit into different communities, I think, would be helpful. So I think it could be a real asset in trying to help navigate that space.”

The Carolina North site is located at the northwest corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Estes Drive in Chapel Hill, where Horace Williams Airport was located before its closure in May 2018. UNC has entertained placing a new basketball arena in that space and much more. In a Board of Trustees meeting last month, there was even a proposal to use part of the space to house a multi-use cricket facility.

Last August, a physical master plan working group, commissioned by Roberts, delivered its final report on the recommended next steps for the university’s physical footprint with a focus on priorities for renovation and redevelopment, including the Smith Center. The working group’s final report detailed six site options for men’s basketball: Smith Center renovation, Smith Center replacement, Bowles parking lot, Odum Village, Friday Center and Carolina North. All six options allowed for enough arena space to hold premium seating with a 16,000-seat capacity. The off-campus locations – Friday Center and Carolina North – were highlighted as options that could utilize mixed-use designations while also allowing for the university to provide bus transit for on-campus students to each home game (3,000 max per game).

“I want to be part of a group that has a common mission and vision for where we’re going and what role I play isn’t that important to me,” Cunningham said in the previously mentioned Q&A session. “I do think that we’re going to add 5,000 students to the university over the next 10 years. We are going to develop Carolina North with residential housing, maybe a public-private partnership, maybe an innovation or research area up there, possibly a basketball arena. We know we have to make a decision in the next three or four years. Do we renovate what we have? Do we build new here? Do we build new there? All of that. I’d love to be a part of that, in that decision making process and see that come to fruition. And again, it is changing.”

Also listed in Cunningham’s responsibilities as a senior advisor include overseeing community development opportunities, securing funding for specific projects with the help of donors, university leaders and others, advising the university on the NIL landscape, media rights and conference realignment, building relationships in the NCAA and more.

Cunningham’s deal includes a $903,000 annual salary with performance-based incentives contingent upon the success of UNC’s football, men’s and women’s basketball and other varsity sports teams’ performances. Additionally, UNC’s standing in the Director’s Cup would boost his pay.

Steve Newmark will take over as the AD when Cunningham transitions out of his role. Newmark’s official first day on the job as Executive Associate Athletic Director was last Friday. Newmark signed his deal on July 23.

“Steve’s been wonderful to work with,” Cunningham said last week on UNC’s Carolina Insider podcast. “I think he’s building great relationships with folks around campus. Interestingly, growing up in Chapel Hill, he knows a lot of people in Chapel Hill. He doesn’t know very many at all in college athletics. So part of my job this year is trying to open up my contact list to him so he can fully understand intercollegiate athletics on an ACC basis and a national basis. But locally, he has a lot of relationships.

“We talked about, ‘Why are some of our programs so successful?’ Because you have continuity of leadership. And this gives us a year to work together, and then he can take it into a direction that he thinks is most appropriate going forward.”