CHARLOTTE — Bill Belichick mania is hitting a new fever pitch, still more than five weeks away from his first game at North Carolina, but the NFL legend is embracing the transition to college football.

“We have a lot of experience in dealing with kind of what the college football landscape is now,” Belichick said Thursday at ACC media days, referencing his coaching staff and front office led by GM Michael Lombardi. “Not the same, but similar in terms of NIL, revenue-sharing, free agency, if you will, and recruiting post-draft type recruiting as opposed to drafting.”

From roster limits to practice time to game preparations, Belichick, 73, feels comfortable in his new role coaching college athletes. “It’s not that different from the NFL,” he said.

Chapel Bill Is Here

Belichick and UNC were by far the biggest draw at the ACC’s preseason kickoff event, and the six-time Super Bowl–winning head coach, known for his often tense interactions with reporters, kept a smile on his face as he hit the podium, chopped it up on TV shows, and met with reporters.

When UNC hired Belichick in December, he instantly became one of the highest-paid coaches in college football with a $10 million salary. And even before he coached a single game in Chapel Hill, speculation about returning to the NFL has remained a talking point after his buyout dropped from $10 million to $1 million on June 1. Meanwhile, Belichick’s relationship with girlfriend Jordon Hudson, including a tenuous interview with CBS News, brought unwanted attention to the coach.

But those potential distractions haven’t stunted the growing hype around Belichick off the field.

On Wednesday, UNC announced it had sold out of all football tickets—season and single game—this season. ESPN platforms have locked in the majority of Tar Heels game broadcasts this season, Front Office Sports can report, as the network bets on Belichick bringing a Deion Sanders–like TV ratings impact. And a docuseries featuring Belichick and UNC football is slated to be released on Disney’s Hulu streaming service, multiple sources previously told FOS.

CBS Sports is about to have a new corporate parent as the $8 billion, long-planned merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media gained approval late Thursday from the Federal Communications Commission. What’s unknown, though, is how much collateral damage was incurred to gain that assent. 

Though more than a year in development, the FCC approval arrived just 23 days after Paramount, also the current parent of 60 Minutes, in addition to CBS Sports, agreed to a $16 million legal settlement with U.S. President Donald Trump to resolve a $20 billion legal claim centered on alleged election interference. Though Trump’s suit was widely deemed to be legally specious, Paramount made the deal to avoid “being mired in uncertainty and distraction,” company co-CEO George Cheeks said. 

In delivering the approval of the proposed transaction, FCC chair Brendan Carr said Skydance has agreed not to establish any diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at the merged company, and committed to practicing what the commission called “unbiased journalism.” The latter will be enforced through an ombudsman placed within the company for a minimum of two years who will report to the company president.

“Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change,” Carr said. “That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once-storied CBS broadcast network.”

Such a stance has delivered stinging rebukes of Paramount and Skydance across the political and media landscapes. In the days since the settlement, a series of programs on Paramount-owned networks such as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and South Park have all skewered the president, the legal agreement, or both. 

Closing on the merger is expected in the coming weeks.

The FCC decision, however, was not unanimous, and passed by a 2–1 vote. Commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat, dissented, calling out what she saw as cowardice by Paramount and improper conduct by the FCC and the Trump Administration. 

“Despite this regrettable outcome, this administration is not done with its assault on the First Amendment. In fact, it may only be the beginning,” Gomez wrote in her dissent. “The Paramount payout and this reckless approval have emboldened those who believe the government can—and should—abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions.”

NFL Questions

All eyes, meanwhile, will be on the NFL as it has an option to renegotiate or exit its media-rights deal with CBS Sports thanks to a change-of-ownership provision in the deal. League commissioner Roger Goodell said earlier this month he did not expect to exercise that option, but will be reviewing the situation. 

“We’ve had a long relationship with CBS, for decades. We also have a relationship outside of that with Skydance,” Goodell said. “So I don’t anticipate that [an opt-out is] something that we’ll see. We have a two-year period to make that decision. I don’t see that happening, but we have that option.”

Part of the FCC application by Skydance and Paramount argued the deal would provide “an infusion of capital [to] help ensure popular live sports … remain available to over-the-air viewers.”

After more than two years of largely unanswered questions, Major League Soccer has given its first major indication on the performance of its media-rights deal with Apple. The disclosure, however, only amplifies the scrutiny around the groundbreaking, but much-debated, streaming pact.

MLS commissioner Don Garber, in the midst of detailing accomplishments from the first half of the 2025 season, gave the first specific accounting late Wednesday of the average audience on MLS Season Pass games on Apple TV.

“The Apple deal has grown. We’re averaging 120,000 unique viewers per match,” Garber said. “That’s an increase of almost 50% compared to last year. Distribution has helped drive a lot of that.”

That figure—given as a matter-of-fact statement amid several other comments around the league’s large-scale schedule deliberations, competitive growth, stadium development, and other league issues—stunned many observers. After all, MLS has largely sidestepped all audience-related inquiries on the Apple deal’s performance since the league struck the 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement in 2022. 

Additionally, many streaming-based sports broadcasts remain mired in opaque and often-confusing metrics. Only select outliers, such as Amazon’s Thursday Night Football coverage with the NFL, have aligned with Nielsen—the established, third-party leader in tracking viewership on linear TV and streaming, and a company expanding its measurement approach.

Garber, however, said that MLS and Apple agree that a heightened level of transparency is required to help bring the pact to the next level.

“We and Apple have been trying to figure it all out,” he said. “I know it’s frustrating for those who are looking for more information. We and Apple believe we need to start sharing some more information so you can start looking at what does it really mean. It’s the beginning, not the end.”

Bigger Issues

So what does Garber’s disclosure mean? On a surface level, the 120,000 unique viewers per match is far less than the 343,000 viewers per match that ESPN networks registered for MLS in 2022, the last year before the Apple TV pact started. That’s hardly a direct comparison, though. The latter figure is an audited one using the established methodology of average-minute audience in broadcast media, while the streaming one spans an entire match and does not have third-party certification.

Even Garber himself acknowledged that the league is wrestling with the proper means to evaluate the streaming audiences, particularly given the subscription-based economic model of Apple TV.

“What we’re struggling with, and I think what the industry is struggling with, is there has been no system to be able to evaluate how people are in a subscription service, how they’re viewing and consuming games, and what is the metric that matters most,” he said. “Is it average-minute audience? Unique viewers? Remember, we’re on a subscription service, which is very different than having your games available on a linear network.”

In the meantime, though, the league and Apple have pushed MLS Season Pass back somewhat towards linear TV, striking deals with distributors such as Comcast and DirecTV. The commissioner additionally noted how the MLS schedule greatly differs from many other North American sports leagues. 

“Other leagues have a game of the night, game of the week, Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV,” Garber said. “All of our games, for the most part, are on Saturday, all up against each other. So when you have 120,000 unique viewers [per game] across that, that’s a lot of people. Aggregate all that. Depending on what week it is, you have over a million people that are unique viewers.”

Apple, for its part, will almost certainly need to embrace more established audience metrics as it looks to expand its presence in live sports, perhaps with new rights in Formula One and expanded ones with MLB.

The Indiana Fever announced some positive news about Caitlin Clark on Thursday. The star guard underwent medical evaluations earlier this week, which revealed “no additional injuries or damage.”

Clark’s recent right groin injury, which she sustained on July 15 in a game against the Connecticut Sun, is the third different injury that has caused her to miss time this season. She’s missed five games on two separate occasions this year, first due to a left quad strain and then because of a left groin injury.

However, the Fever also announced there is no timetable for the return of Clark, who has missed 11 of the team’s 24 games this year. The team’s statement said they will prioritize her “long-term health and well-being.”

Clark’s absence is a blow to the Fever’s playoff hopes. At 12–12, Indiana holds a one-game lead over the ninth-seed Golden State Valkyries. However, the Fever are 4–7 without Clark in the lineup. 

Her absence is also a tough break for the Chicago Sky and Dallas Wings, both of whom have home games against the Fever coming up that were moved to larger arenas to accommodate fans hoping to catch Clark in action. Chicago moved its game to the United Center, home of the NBA’s Bulls and NHL’s Blackhawks, while the Wings moved their game to American Airlines Center, home of the NBA’s Mavericks and NHL’s Stars.

Here are the scheduled games:

• Fever at Sky: July 27
• Fever at Wings: Aug. 1

It’s the second game of the 2025 WNBA season that Chicago and Dallas moved to bigger arenas. Clark missed the first game in both cities due to injury. Both teams still sold out those games, though ticket prices were negatively affected by the star guard’s absence.

There is only one more Fever game remaining this season moved to an arena with a larger capacity than the home team’s usual location. However, the Washington Mystics host the Fever on Sept. 7 at CFG Bank Arena. The game is in six weeks and is Indiana’s second-to-last game of the season.

The two teams played at the same venue on May 28, and Clark also missed the contest due to injury. The Mystics still announced a sellout crowd of 11,183.

Viewership Dip?

Clark’s injury is also a blow to networks as she continues to prove she’s the league’s biggest ratings draw. Sunday’s game against the Sky will air on ABC, and the two teams have faced off in the three most-watched WNBA regular-season games since Clark and Sky star Angel Reese were drafted. 

Next Friday’s game against the Wings will air on Ion, and the Fever’s game against the Atlanta Dream on July 11 was the most-watched game on the network this season with 1.5 million viewers.