Joel Bulkley
Raleigh/Durham (The Triangle), a well known hotspot for college sports, ranked fourth in Nielsen Scarborough Fandom Index in local college basketball behind Lexington (Ky, first), Louisville (Ky, second) and DesMoines/Ames (IA, third).
The index measures fandom using metrics like attendance, viewership and social media activity. As you can imagine, the Raleigh/Durham market benefits from the presence and sports success of Duke, North Carolina and NC State.
Others on the hoops list were: 5 Indianapolis, 6 Birmingham, 7 Omaha, 8 Knoxville, 9 Wichita/Hutchinson, 11 Memphis, 12 Tucson, 13 Charleston/Huntington, 14 Little Rock/ Pine Bluff, 14 Syracuse, 16 Cincinnati, 17 Columbus, 18 Hartford/New Haven, 19 Oklahoma City, 20 Spokane.
The release follows similar market rankings for college football published in September. Football leaders were Birmingham, DesMoines/Ames, Columbus, Omaha.
Birmingham’s #1 finish indicates the intensity of fandom within the SEC. The Alabama/Auburn market leads in interest and event attendance, while ranking in the top four for apparel, social media, radio, streaming and TV viewing.
Despite overlapping cores, college hoops fandom is more geographically dispersed than football, with voracious fanbases in Washington, New York, Connecticut and Arizona. None of those markets cracked basketball’s top 10, though.
According to Yahoo Sports, in tech-heavy regions like Raleigh/Durham, fans have a strong preference for live event attendance and streaming platforms over standard linear TV, making experiential marketing and OTT streaming combos prime targets.
Both women (up 20 percent) and men’s hoops (up 19 percent) showed major gains in TV audience last season, Nielsen reported.
Following a basketball theme, it looks like ESPN’s top broadcast teams are pretty much the same as last season. Bilas/Shulman and Ruocco/Lebo are their top teams.
For men’s games, Cory Alexander, Jay Williams, LaPhonso Ellis, Steve Lavin, Malcolm Brogden, Randolph Childress, Jason Capel, Dave O’Brien are among the familiar voices. Former coaches Kevin Keatts, Seth Greenberg return as well. Veterans from ACCN like Wes Durham, Amish Shraff also do hoops as well as football.
Hubert Davis will be a game and studio analyst at TNT Sports for Big East and Big 12 college games.
WRDC (channel 12 on Spectrum Cable) carries Charlotte Hornets games.
The Hornets, down three starters due to injury and playing poorly, were booed at their season home opener in Charlotte. Said Coach Charlie Lee, “If you hear boos, you’ve got to be able to play better.”
A moment of silence for Chris Spatola was held at Duke before the Army game in Durham. He was a former Army player, Duke assistant and ESPN hoops analyst who passed this summer.
Some 54 ACC games (men & women) will be on The CW as their agreement with ESPN was extended through 2031.
Have seen bits and pieces about how much NIL money schools have for NIL. The stories aren’t confirmed by the schools, but a consensus is Wake Forest has limited ($5M) NIL funds for basketball,
Good stuff. Nice to see the Charlotte area getting some ink as a N.C. hotbed for disc golf, but didn’t realize they had 37 courses (25 are open to the public).
Hurricanes star Seth Jarvis made a generous donation to support a new dog program called Paws and Heel that helps pediatric patients at UNC Children’s Hospital with specially trained dogs that are permanent part of the care team.
Ernie Johnson, 70, long-time host of “Inside the NBA” will step back at the end of the season and Michael Wilbon is taking a leave of absence from ESPN for health reasons. Both are fun and knowledgeable voices in sports.
The Holt Athletic Association in North Durham could use some love (and donations). They are a youth sports provider (and Tobacco Road Rugby plays there). Tropical storm Chantal flooded the neighborhood near the Eno River in July 2025. Last month thieves stole supplies and equipment including lawnmowers valued at $28,000 from a storage shed.
UNC’s loss to Syracuse in football cost them a chance to host ESPN’s College GameDay before the UNC-Miami game. They’ve only been to Chapel Hill only once and it was years ago for a game with Florida State in 1998. UNC was featured on GameDay twice but it was for neutral site games.
Am surprised/disappointed there’s so little media attention to the continuing drought and its impact on Triangle communities. Occasional pictures of Falls Lake apparently don’t do much to emphasize the critical need to reduce water use. Most Durham residents seem oblivious to the problem as they continue to wash their cars and hose down their driveways.
Credit to the New York Times for a special Marathon section (36 pages) two days after the New York City Marathon. It was amazing. They listed the more than 60,000+ finishers and their times, filling about 31 pages (9 columns per page top to bottom in small type).