Davidson’s Basketball Teams Get Eight-Figure Steph Curry Bump

Stephen Curry is heavily backing Davidson basketball.

The Warriors superstar is taking on a role as the assistant general manager for the men’s and women’s basketball teams at his alma mater, the school announced Monday. 

Curry and credit card executive Matt Berman—who played soccer at Davidson and co-owns English second-division team Burnley FC—are starting an “eight-figure fund” to pay Davidson basketball players.

Berman’s father, Don, played high school basketball with longtime Davidson coach Bob McKillop, who coached Curry. McKillop’s son Matt now coaches the Wildcats.

The fund will be used to help both Davidson basketball programs with revenue-sharing after the school opted into the House v. NCAA settlement, which is expected to be finalized next month and will permit schools to give athletes up to $20 million annually as part of a new revenue sharing structure. 

Curry led Davidson to the Elite 8 in 2008 and finished his coursework to graduate in 2022.

Davidson athletic director Chris Clunie said the school will do additional fundraising to help with revenue sharing. 

Davidson basketball GM Austin Buntz told Front Office Sports that the Berman/Curry fund has been in the works for over a year as the school—which has enrollment of roughly 2,000 students—has tried to figure out how to compete in the modern era. 

“The collective model was always kind of a challenge for smaller schools like Davidson because we have a significantly smaller alumni network,” Buntz told FOS. “We went to Steph and the Berman family directly. They’ve been generous for decades. They jumped right in. They believe in this place, they believe in this program.”

Buntz said the program will be careful with Curry’s time. But he added that Curry is well aware of the program’s needs two weeks before the transfer portal opens and has already started his new job weighing in on the program’s offseason strategy. “He knows what our needs are going to be in the portal,” Buntz said. “He’s all in the mix.”

“The goal for this is to invest in the next student athlete that’s coming into Davidson today,” Curry said in the release.

Davidson isn’t the only school Curry is involved with funding. The avid golfer gave Howard University a seven-figure gift for the school’s golf program, which reached the NCAA regional finals for the first time in program history in 2024.  

Curry has made over $410 million in salary in his NBA career and is the league’s highest-paid player this year at just over $56 million.

He’s one of a number of NBA stars who hails from a smaller school and has the ability to drastically impact the team without taking a serious financial hit.

Most NBA stars aren’t interested in dabbling in NIL, but a few are. 

As Front Office Sports first reported, Clippers star James Harden has given Arizona State’s Sun Angel collective a high six-figure donation. Other NBA players have given smaller six-figure contributions to their schools’ collectives. 

But Curry, while in a partnership, is the first known player to break the eight-figure range and hold an official position to help his school compete in the new landscape of college sports. 

“A year ago it was how are we going to tackle this new era,” Burntz said. “How can we find that opportunity in chaos? He’s committed to helping. He knows he carries a lot of weight with players and recruits and our current players. We’re going to be incredibly mindful of his time.”