Bill Belichick’s fascinating decision to become the North Carolina football head coach is a windfall for ESPN.
It remains to be seen whether Belichick, who is arguably the greatest NFL coach of all time with six Super Bowl championships as a head coach of the Patriots and two more as defensive coordinator of the Giants, will succeed at the college level.
But either way, it’s definitely going to be interesting.
The scenario is a big win for ESPN, which is the sole rightsholder of the ACC in addition to operating the conference’s network.
North Carolina has conference games against Cal, NC State, Clemson, Duke, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia and Wake Forest in 2025 and an out-of-conference home game against TCU.
None of these games would have been appointment TV for casual fans before the Belichick news, which would have been absolutely stunning as recently as several days ago.
Now, fans will be intrigued by the matchups and pick them over other games.
The jobs aren’t open, but it would’ve been interesting if Belichick went to a blue blood program like Texas or Alabama.
However, in those scenarios, those are programs that are already expected to be big draws for ESPN, which has exclusive rights to those schools and the SEC.
For ESPN, Belichick’s landing at North Carolina is like finding a wad of money on the ground.
Even if ESPN loses Belichick from “ManningCast” and/or “The Pat McAfee Show,” where he’s been magnificent in both spots this season, the benefits of having the exclusive live rights to his games at North Carolina would far outweigh the loss.
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