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Michael Lombardi addresses how NIL funds will be distributed at North Carolina

On3 imageby:Dan Morrisonabout 22 hours

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North Carolina Helmet
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The North Carolina Tar Heels have a new look football program going into the 2025 season. It’s a program that, with Michael Lombardi taking over as the team’s GM, will have a new approach to roster building moving forward.

Lombardi, who comes in with decades of NFL experience, knows he’s going to need to navigate dealing with NIL at the college level. With a collective in place, he knows what resources he has to work with and now it’s on him to distribute those NIL funds.

“We have a collective,” Michael Lombardi said. “So, we know what’s in the collective but in any system, you have to have a monetary value, you have to have a system. So, if you’re a starter on the team, there’s going to be a certain value placed on what level of starter you are. That’s why you have to have a grading system. You just can’t arbitrarily say, ‘I like this guy, like that guy.’ We’re not picking fruit here. You have to have a grading system. And so when the grade reflects what you pay.”

Lombardi came to North Carolina along with head coach Bill Belichick. The two have plenty of experience working together with Lombardi being in the front office for Belichick in Cleveland and later in New England. Now, he’s going to use a way of evaluating players similar to that of an NFL team.

“It’s an amazing thing. Everybody says this guy’s a first rounder or this guy’s a second rounder. Well, that’s insignificant. A first rounder makes ‘X’ and a second rounder makes ‘Y’. So what you’re doing is valuing the player, right? When you use those terms when they do it on television, they don’t value the player because it’s not their money,” Lombardi said. “But when you’re picking in real life, you’re saying, I’m going to give this guy a guaranteed contract for five years. He’s worth ‘X’? Is that talent worth that? It’s the same thing you’re doing in high school on a lower level.”

One unique challenge that Lombardi knows he has to deal with at North Carolina is the Transfer Portal. In the NFL, some players are on one-year deals or in the final season of a contract, but not everyone is in that situation. College players, on the other hand, could leave after every single season and be looking for more money in the process.

“So, you have to be able to do that. So if a starter starts for three years in your program, he’s going to make significant money. The guy who starts one year, he’s going to make a little bit the next year, he’s got to prove himself again. Because every year every player could leave,” Lombardi said.

“And so you have to have some kind of way, or else you have anarchy. You don’t have any system. That’s why you have to have a grading system. That’s why you have to grade your players every single day. You have to grade every player so you know what you’re losing and what you have to expect to get back.”

How rosters are built in college athletics has rapidly changed in recent years. Even the role of GM that Lombardi holds is relatively new, though it’s clear North Carolina is embracing that change, especially as the basketball program has now added its own GM in Jim Tanner.