Joel Bulkley
The Tar Heel Sports Network made a lot of changes in personnel for UNC football coverage.
Jones Angell returns to a play-by-play role with Joe Tauch and Bryn Renner as analysts, succeeding Brian Simmons who joined Mack Brown’s staff. They are former UNC players. Tauch, a former WR from Virginia, did the first game. Renner, a former QB, does game 3. They apparently will alternate games, with each doing about half.
Na Brown, a former UNC player, is a co-host on the early pregame show and succeeds Deems May on post home game programs. Dave Nathan returns for pregame, halftime, score updates and postgame duties. Lee Pace is back as sideline reporter, but had problems with technical issues at the first game.
The Minnesota radio coverage was OK after the one hour weather delay. Former QB Brock Huard was emotional on the Fox TV broadcast when UNC QB Max Johnson was injured.
“My mom was a 3-time QB mom, it’s a hard job… every eyeball judges a QB on every single play and moms carry that weight.”@BrockHuard gets emotional while watching Max Johnson’s mom in tears after her son exited the game due to injury pic.twitter.com/PJuMsn7pCV
The start of football season brought changes at ACC Network where Wes Durham, Tom Luginbill, Dana Boyle are doing the primetime ACCN games. Not certain about the other crews, but there are lots of new faces. Kelsey Riggs, formerly of ACCN, is now a SportsCenter anchor, Roddy Jones is doing ACC and ESPN games.
The ACC Huddle, the traveling roadshow hosted by Taylor Tannebaum, has Eric Mac Lain, EJ Manuel, Mark Richt, Eddie Royal, that travels to ACCN big games for pre and post game shows. I seldom watch those programs.
The CW will have 13 ACC football games that were sold by Raycom Sports. Lead broadcaster is Thom Brennaman, a former MLB announcer for Fox, and Max Browne. They also do PAC 12 games.
Luke Kuechly joined CBS as a college football analyst. He’s still in the rotation for the Panther radio crew. Greg Olsen, who was excellent last season on the Fox A team, joined Joe Davis, Pam Oliver on the B team. Tom Brady’s arrival forced Olsen out. Mike Greenberg is the new host of Sunday NFL Countdown on ESPN, replacing Sam Ponder.
Waiting to see what happens to Venu Sports, the new Disney/Fox/Warner/Discovery venture for streaming sports that was shut down before it started by a federal judge after FuboTV claimed it violated antitrust laws. The service might help some sports fans, but I don’t see it without CBS, NBC and others.
Diamond Sports, the parent of Bally Sports RSN, reached deals with the NBA and NHL to carry games next season if they can get out of bankruptcy by April 1, 2025. Meanwhile, NBA teams like Charlotte will take a 30-40 percent cut in rights fees, NHL teams like the Hurricanes 20 percent, according to news reports. If Bally doesn’t succeed by the deadline, teams can seek broadcast deals with local TV stations.
Good stuff. Jay Price of Chapel Hill won an Edward R. Murrow 2024 award for feature reporting for “Alone Day” story on a veteran for N.C. Public Radio (WUNC Radio). He’s an avid cyclist. Another award winner was a SportsCenter feature: Running for Martin from ESPN about the Boston Marathon bombing and an eight-year-old that was wonderful.
Credit to sideline reporter Holly Rowe of ESPN for a live listen-in report on coach to player instructions via helmet in the Texas A&M/Notre Dame game.
Spent time watching the U.S. Open Tennis and Paralympics, impressive performances everywhere. Paralympic TV coverage was limited.