Bill Belichick to UNC … Wow!

Obviously, the biggest sports news overnight is that Bill Belichick and UNC have reached an agreement for him to be the head football coach in Chapel Hill.  Reports say that the contract is for 5 years at $10M per year.  Clearly, there are at least several million reasons why that job interested him.

Bill Belichick’s experience regarding collegiate football is limited to his comments made as this contract was announced:

“I am excited for the opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill.  I grew up around college football with my Dad and treasured those times.  I have always wanted to coach in college and now I look forward to building the football program in Chapel Hill.”

Lots of folks have weighed in with their beliefs as to how this will all turn out.  I believe that this is the sort of social experiment that has no real precedent; therefore, I will admit from the outset that I have no idea how it will all turn out.  But I am going to be very interested to see how it progresses because:

• Bill Belichick is 72 years old.
• His NFL experience should translate to the practice field and the sidelines.
• His NFL experience does not include a heavy emphasis on recruiting.
• His fistful of Super Bowl rings might be a powerful player recruiting tool.
• His fistful of Super Bowl rings guarantees that he will have a great set of assistant coaches.
• His “dour disposition” might be a negative player recruiting tool.
• His age may be a negative recruiting tool with “teenage players”.
• His NFL experience does not involve every player on his team achieving free agency every year which is what the NCAA transfer portal provides.
• His NFL experience involved keeping one very wealthy man (Robert Kraft) happy; at UNC he will have to keep lots of very wealthy donors happy.

You get the idea here.  The best thing to do here is to sit back and pour yourself some coffee – – or an adult beverage if you prefer – – and see how all of this plays out.  I can think of only one situation that might be similar to this one.  In the 1990s, Bill Walsh had retired as the head coach of the Niners.  He took that job after a stint as the head coach at Stanford’ and after his retirement from the NFL, he returned to Stanford as the head coach for three seasons.

In Walsh’s first year back at Stanford, the Cardinal tied for first place in the PAC-10 conference and finished the year ranked #9 in the country.  The next two seasons were not nearly as successful; the combined record for those two seasons was 7-14-1.  That is awfully unstable footing from which to project the “fate” of the “UNC/Belichick Experiment”, but I don’t have anything better to offer.

Moving on …  This next item is a good news/bad news situation.

• The good news for the NBA is that they have a new media rights deal in place that will bring $76B to the league over an 11-year time span.
• The bad news – – for the networks – – is that NBA ratings are in the dumpster at the moment.

The NBA is currently in the midst of the NBA Cup tournament – – in case you had not noticed – – and the entire NBA Cup charade was created to generate interest in early-season NBA games.   Even so, ratings are down, and they are down significantly.  Consider:

• TV ratings for NBA Cup games are down 10% from last year’s NBA Cup games.
• TV ratings for NBA games on ESPN are down 28% as compared to 2023.  Moreover, those 2023 ratings were down almost 10% from the same time period in 2022.

When I saw those numbers reported, I wondered if they represented a decline in sports viewing generally in 2024.  They do not.

• NFL ratings are up this year over last year.
• MLB’s playoffs and World Series rating were up this year over last year.
• March Madness ratings were up in 2024 – – albeit only slightly.
• WNBA ratings – – riding the Caitlin Clark/Angel Reese wave – – almost doubled in 2024 as compared to 2023.

I don’t think the NBA ratings drop can be attributed to any tectonic shift in America’s consumption of sports on TV.  I think the NBA’s “problems” come down to four issues:

1. The regular season is too long, and it lacks suspense.
2. Too often as I watch an NBA game, it is painfully obvious that some of the players on the court do not care about the game they are taking part in.  The lack of “hustle” or “effort” or “intensity” is really off-putting.
3. There are not nearly enough “stars” for fans to attach themselves to; that is why you will rarely see a national telecast of Pistons/Trailblazers or Hornets/Jazz in 2024 or 2025.
4. Far too often, NBA games on TV devolve into 3-point shooting contests except there are more people on the court than in the original 3-point shooting contests invented for NBA All-Star week.

[Aside:  I went to last night’s NBA box scores.  Hawks/Knicks tried 73 3-point shots; Warriors/Rockets tried 65 3-point shots.  In a combined 96 minutes of basketball, those games involved 138 3-point shots.  From a viewing perspective that deserves a hearty “Ho-hum!”]

Finally, I alluded above to the possibility that Bill Belichick might have some difficulty “relating to” young recruits; so, let me close with these two quotes from Coach Belichick that illustrate that concern:

“I think it’s important for us, as a team, to know each other. Know our teammates and our coaches. To interact with them is more important than to be ‘liked’ by whoever on Chatrun.”

And …

“As you know, I’m not on SnapFace and all that, so I don’t really get those. I’m really just worried about getting our team ready to go.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………