Belichick’s Tar Heels Are Losing Momentum on the Field—and on TV

As North Carolina and football coach Bill Belichick aim to squash rumors of the NFL legend not making it through his debut college season, the on-field struggles for the Tar Heels are bleeding into the media landscape.

The ACC’s broadcast partners entered the season with high prospects for UNC, hoping that Belichick would bring a Deion Sanders–like effect to Chapel Hill. ESPN was primed to air the majority of Tar Heels games this fall, but that was before a 2–3 start and seemingly no momentum of turning things around.

On Friday, UNC-Cal will air on ESPN at 10:30 p.m. ET, which was locked in before the season. But for the six-game ACC slate on Oct. 25, which was revealed Monday, ESPN passed on picking the Virginia at North Carolina matchup, which will air at noon ET on the ACC Network. ESPN or ESPN2 will air Syracuse–No. 12 Georgia Tech (noon) and Stanford–No. 2 Miami (7 p.m.).

The ACC Network is owned by ESPN, but its telecasts are not rated by Nielsen, so game viewership figures are not typically available. 

A source tells Front Office Sports that the standard selection process for the Week 9 games gave ESPN the first two choices; the ACC Network chose Virginia-UNC before The CW made its pick, SMU–Wake Forest at noon.

Additionally, the ACCN has opted to put NC State–Pitt (3:30 p.m. ET) and Boston College–Louisville (7:30 p.m. ET) in its typically more attractive TV windows that mostly draw larger audiences later in the day, instead of Belichick’s Tar Heels. 

An ESPN spokesperson tells FOS, “Noon is a strong window for ACC Network and we are excited to have ACC Huddle lead directly into this matchup.” ACC Huddle is the conference’s traveling pregame show; a source says the ACCN is considering broadcasting from Chapel Hill next Saturday, as well as Atlanta or Miami.

Ratings Report

After 6.6 million people watched Belichick’s UNC debut on Labor Day against TCU (a 48–14 loss), the Tar Heels haven’t drawn the large TV audiences many predicted they could and would.

UNC’s most recent game, a 38–10 loss to Clemson on Oct. 4, drew 1.86 million viewers on ESPN in the noon window, which ranked 10th among Week 6 college football audiences. On Sept. 20, UNC–Central Florida drew 2.03 million viewers on Fox, the 11th highest in Week 4.  

UNC’s other two games were not on Nielsen-rated networks, against Charlotte (ESPN+) and Richmond (ACCN).