Joel Bulkley
ESPN broadcaster/columnist Jay Bilas listed 13 ACC hoops teams among his top 68. Boston College, Cal, Florida. State, Miami, Stanford were not included.
But ESPN’s Joe Linardi didn’t get the message. He has the ACC as the fifth strongest of five major conferences, getting only five NCAA bids, or possibly 6 (33 percent). The Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, Big East all were rated higher, and only the Big East would get fewer bids, 4 or 5, than the ACC.
Former ACC players populate ESPN networks and ACCN broadcast crews including Bilas, Randolph Childress, Cory Alexander, Luke Hancock, Jay Williams, Dennis Scott, Dan Bonner, Joel Berry. They join veterans Wes Durham, Chris Spitola, Jim Boeheim, newcomer Kevin Keatts in covering ACC hoops.
Most ex-UNC players work on the NBA side—Brad Daughtery, Kenny Smith, Vince Carter, Danny Green.
ACC football is improving inch by inch and so are TV ratings. The SEC dominates on the field and TV. SEC games averaged 4.7M viewers through ten weeks, ACC 2.3M, Big Ten 1.9M, Big 12 1.4M, according to a story by N&O columnist Luke Decock. The ACC number covers 34 Nielsen-tabulated broadcasts and reportedly are up 98 percent over last year. Games on ACCN, ESPN+ are not included.
Miami (30.1M), Florida State, Clemson (18.4M), Ga. Tech, UNC (13.1M) lead the ACC football ratings which are cumulative through ten weeks, according to ACC officials. Duke (5.7M) is tenth in the ACC, NC State (3.7M) 16th.
Who you play and what time are key. The Wolfpack’s upset of Ga. Tech drew only 604,000 viewers on a Saturday night and was up against Game 7 of the World Series which drew a record 25+M viewers in the U.S, while FSU’s upset of Alabama in week one had 10M+ viewers or about half of FSU’s season total.
UNC’s 6M for TCU on Labor Day was followed by 2M for UCF, Clemson 1.86M, Cal 1.58M (late night), Syracuse 983,000, matched against World Series Game 6. There were no ratings for Virginia, Charlotte, Richmond games.
The continued shutdown of Disney channels on YouTube TV isn’t helping any fans or ratings.
Here’s where/when to find NBA games—via TV, cable or streaming: Monday, Peacock; Tuesday, NBC; Wednesday, ESPN; Thursday, Prime Video; Friday, Prime Video/ESPN; Saturday, Prime Video days, ABC night; Sunday, ABC day and NBC night.
If you watched every NBA game for eight months (Oct-June), it would cost a total of $577.75, athletic.com reported last month. That’s $119.92 for Amazon Prime, $87.92 for Peacock, $239.92 ESPN Unlimited, $109.99 NBA League Pass.
Raleigh’s Best 2025 may not be in Raleigh. Some 366,000 votes were cast to select the best businesses in 237 categories for the N&O’s annual advertising feature (a fancy bound edition).
Some examples: boat dealership, Water World, Durham, first, Capital Watersports, Wake Forest, second; bike shop, Apex Bike Shop; outdoor gear, Water World, first, Apex Outfitters, third; golf course, Treyburn CC, Durham; attraction, Durham Bulls, second behind PinPoint Indoor pickleball & golf, Raleigh.
The Assembly had an interesting story on the vanishing news anchors at Capitol Broadcasting (WRAL TV). While WRAL leads the Triangle market news audience, the station battles for advertising dollars in a challenging economy and works anchors longer and harder (like emergency weather days) for the same or less money than they think they’re worth. Hence the departures.
The parent company of the Raleigh and Charlotte daily papers (McClatchy) is shutting down its Washington news bureau. More bad news for local readers, and more likelihood for page stuffers like health inspections ratings for all food carts in the entire state. Rather than news stories.