A football icon takes over as head coach of a mediocre college football program. The sheer gravity of the coach’s aura attracts attention to the program despite its lack of recent success. The media attention paid to the coach and team begins to dwarf that of many other programs with better recent track records. The school receives notable broadcasting windows and promotional opportunities heretofore unthinkable.
That cycle probably sounds familiar if you’re a college football fan as it’s what happened with the Colorado Buffaloes when Deion Sanders took over as head coach.
According to one sports media insider, newly minted North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Bill Belichick is about to get the same treatment.
While both Fox and ESPN/ABC have done their fair share to highlight Colorado under Sanders (and have the ratings to back the strategy up), Fox really went all-in with Coach Prime, putting the Buffs in prime broadcasting slots and showing up at Colorado games often for Big Noon Kickoff. While some saw it as overkill, Colorado and Sanders have proven themselves worthy of the attention in Year 2.
Puck’s John Ourand expects ESPN, which holds the rights to most ACC games, to “run this same playbook, albeit on steroids.”
“Sources in Bristol seem as excited about the prospect of Belichick coming to college football as Fox was about Colorado hiring Deion, and they will certainly give UNC some of the best windows early in the season,” he wrote earlier this week.
One of the issues facing ESPN on that front is that UNC’s 2025 schedule isn’t exactly frontloaded with bangers. While the Tar Heels opened the season at home against the TCU Horned Frogs, their next three games are against Charlotte, Richmond, and UCF. Business picks up after that, with road tilts against Cal and NC State before home games against Clemson and Duke.
Another issue that could prevent ESPN from giving “Chapel Bill” top billing is that they also hold the rights to SEC games, and will undoubtedly keep those front and center in their ABC primetime window. That said, Ourand noted that a source told him UNC will be in rotation for ABC windows most weeks “as long as the team wins some games.”
Regardless, it seems like not only will you see a lot more North Carolina on ESPN and ESPN2 but there will be a College GameDay trip to Chapel Hill at some point.
And considering he still plans to appear on The Pat McAfee Show and ESPN2’s ManningCast, there will be no shortage of “Chapel Bill” on ESPN and ABC airwaves next season.
