Joel Bulkley
North Carolina’s hiring of legendary NFL coach Bill Belichick as head football coach and live streaming of sports dominated the headlines for the past month.
Belichick, 72, has a five-year ($50M) contract to upgrade UNC football by “running an NFL program at the college level.” One key is an increase from $4M to $20M in NIL funds to build recruiting. Ohio State reportedly spent $20M in NIL monies for the team that’s in the CFP finals. Duke reportedly spent $4m on a two-year deal for a QB from the transfer portal.
Building his staff and recruiting are under way. Heading the staff will be GM Michael Lombardi. Freddie Kitchens, a Mack Brown hire who coached UNC in the December bowl game, will be offensive coordinator. Belichick’s son Steve, who coached at Washington State last season, will be defensive coordinator.
For UNC, it’s a gamble, a giant financial commitment, and an exciting challenge that will be fun to watch. The next football signing day is Feb. 5.
Netflix scored audience numbers in the millions for two Christmas NFL games without tech issues. They reportedly will have three games on Xmas next season.
But awarding the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups to Netflix may be problematic. It’s great to pry big FIFA soccer events away from Fox Sports, whose coverage has slipped in recent years, but it seems an unlikely way to grow the sport via a pay TV service. They’ll have exclusive U.S. broadcast rights for 2027 WWC (32 teams) in Brazil and the 2031 event (location TBD).
Streaming live sports is the future everyone says, but for viewers like me it has drawbacks on replays, watching multiple games at the same time, but hopefully there’s time to make improvements.
Carolina Panther radio voice Anish Shroff and Hurricane hockey color analyst Tripp Tracy were co-N.C. broadcasters of the year for 2024. Anish, who does PBP for ESPN, succeeded Mick Mixon on Panther games in 2022. Tracy has been part of Canes coverage for 26 years. Both are more than worthy. Mike Solarte of Spectrum News was the previous winner.
N&O columnist Luke DeCock won his third N.C. Sportswriter of Year award. The winners were announced by the National Sports Media Association, based in Winston-Salem, after voting by members and will be presented in June.
Coming up: CNN has a Kobe Docu Series (3 weekends at 9 p.m.) starting Jan. 25, and NASCAR goes back to Bowman Gray Stadium, Winston-Salem, for The Clash Feb. 1-2 on a quarter-mile oval (Fox Sports).
The Jan. 29 meeting of RDU Airport Authority could be explosive when plans for commercial buildings on what’s now Lake Crabtree CP, Morrisville, will be discussed along with extending Wake County’s lease for the park, home to top-flight mountain bike trails.
Good stuff: DE Kaimon Rucker of UNC donated $10,000 in NIL money to WNC Hurricane Recovery. Wells Fargo made a matching donation and Food Lion donated 10,000 meals to the N.C. Food Bank in his name. Miles Wolff, the minor league baseball pioneer who revived the Durham Bulls, was elected to the N.C. Sports HOF.
I thought all NFL games were broadcast on TV, but Fox/ CBS decided not to broadcast a Panther game against Arizona. It was radio-only, WRAL told CSN. In past years most Panther games were on Fox, but this year they seemed to alternate with CBS, especially late in the season.
Cable TV ratings for college and pro sports tumbled in the fall, according to SportsMedia Watch, with the NBA down 19 percent, hockey 28 percent, men’s college basketball 21 percent. Overall cable viewership declined by double digits, maybe due to cord cutting. We’ll see what the playoff games draw and what conference hoops games generate.
