The Board of Visitors met to discuss the status of and funding for Virginia Athletics June 6, which is one of the focus areas for the Board that Rector Carlos Brown specified in a March meeting. The June 6 meeting was the first time the Board held a designated meeting to discuss athletic competitiveness following Brown's appointment in February.
The following information summarizes the presentation posted to the Board’s website that is meant to accompany the meeting on athletics and funding. No livestream of the meeting’s open session was available.
According to the meeting’s presentation, the Board covered seven topics — Virginia Athletics’ organization, value proposition, performance at a glance, peer benchmarking, House settlement and NIL, fiscal year 2026 highlights and economic impact.
The presentation provided Board members with an overview of the structure of Virginia Athletics. According to the presentation, Virginia Athletics consists of 88 coaches, 190 full-time support staff and 732 student-athletes. The University has teams for 27 sports, 25 of which are governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association — men’s and women’s squash are separately governed by the College Squash Association.
In terms of a broad financial overview of Virginia Athletics, the estimated cost of athletic scholarships for the University in the 2025-26 fiscal year was $28,113,619, and the total operating budget for the Athletic Department for the 2025-26 FY was $170 million.
Following the content covering the department’s success, the Board’s presentation detailed how the University measured up to the other members of the ACC by examining the efficiency of dollars spent compared to performance.
The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics measures athletic performance with its Director’s Cup points. The points quantify an athletic department's overall athletic success across all sports during a given year, and Division I, II, III and NAIA schools all receive points for their performance. One hundred points are awarded to the school that wins the national championship, and points decrease based on how far a school advances in an NCAA tournament.
The University’s average expense per director's point earned was $129,702 for FY 25. This amount is lower than the ACC conference average of $242,500, the presentation detailed. The University also finished No. 4 in Director’s Cup points among all Division I schools.
Also in the realm of finances, the presentation explained the implications of the 2025 House v. NCAA case which allows universities to pay student-athletes in establishing revenue sharing, scholarship expansion and Name, Image and Likeness regulations. The Board’s presentation discussed how universities that opt in to the settlement — including the University — can distribute up to $20.5 million to student-athletes in FY 26. The amount will be raised by 4 percent in future years.
Historically, the NCAA limited scholarships each team could offer — under the new settlement, the University will be able to decide how to allocate scholarships, and up to $2.5 million of the $20.5 million can be put towards additional scholarships for student-athletes. Former U.Va. student-athletes will have access to $2.8 billion worth of back damages, which is retroactive compensation for past restrictions on athlete compensation, that will be paid out from FY 25 to FY 34.
The presentation also detailed the University's athletic performance from the 2025-26 academic year. According to College Football Zone, the University had the highest combined average win percentage in football and men's basketball in the 2025-26 season. The University also finished its season ranked in the top 20 for football and men’s basketball according to an AP poll — No. 16 for football and No. 17 for basketball.
Regarding the overall success of Virginia Athletics, the presentation noted that for the first time in department history, the University achieved over 10 wins in football, over 20 wins in men's and women's basketball and over 30 wins across baseball and softball for the 2025-26 year. The Board also highlighted that the University was one of three schools to achieve this number of wins in each of the aforementioned categories in the 2025-26 academic year.
Specifically, the presentation listed 10 achievements by Virginia Athletics in the meeting, according to the meeting agenda. The Board’s presentation emphasized football's historic season with their trip to the ACC Championship Game and the most wins in school history.
The Board also recognized the four University teams that won the ACC Championship in their respective sports — men’s cross country, women’s swimming, men’s lacrosse and men’s golf. They also recognized the University’s ACC Regular Season Champions — the team within the ACC that finishes with the best win-loss record in the regular season, which includes football, field hockey, men’s soccer, women’s tennis and men’s tennis. The field hockey and men’s tennis teams both tied for first place — field hockey tied with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University and men’s tennis tied with Wake Forest University.
The presentation also highlighted the women’s swimming team's sixth straight national championship from March.
The Board’s presentation also laid out the staff structure of Virginia Athletics, noting that the department is overseen by University President Scott Beardsley. Carla Williams serves as the athletics director, and she is supported by five deputy athletic directors and one associate athletic director.
The Athletic Department also receives funds through the Virginia Athletics Foundation, which supports the student-athlete experience through “scholarships, academic support, sport-specific operational needs and facility upgrades.” The VAF is independently run and is headed by the VAF Board, which is supported by Kevin Miller, executive director of VAF and deputy athletics director. The VAF is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that sources funding from donor contributions, The Sabre Society and scholarship clubs, endowments and sport-specific funds.
Looking at academics, the presentation noted student-athletes' success in the classroom — 83 percent of student-athletes had a GPA of 3.00 or higher. There was a record-high GPA for student-athletes in the Fall 2025 semester, with an average of 3.37. Six teams also posted their highest team GPA in program history in the 2025-26 academic year.
Lastly, the Board reviewed Virginia Athletics’ economic impact from 2023-26, which includes money the University spent on and gained from athletic costs. Over the past three years, the University totaled $1.55 billion through events, camps, student-athletes and athletic revenue. This economic impact breaks down to $653 million from specific external revenues — such as from areas including advertising, media rights and NCAA conference distributions — $483.07 million in the total impact of gameday and non-athletic events and $318.78 million in total impact of University athletic staff.
The presentation also hit on the media exposure of Virginia Athletics. The University gained $2.4 billion in media exposure through television, streaming and radio broadcasts of U.Va. athletic competitions over the past four years. Also detailed is that the University had $197.01 million in total social media exposure in FY 26.
The full Board is scheduled to reconvene during the next Board meetings, Sept. 16-19.
Ruby Budetti is a staff writer on the news desk. She also works as a staffer for The Cavalier Daily social media team. She is a second-year student on the pre-Batten track and hopes to major in Public Policy and Leadership.
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