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).

The bot that alerts the sports world like Paul Revere whenever an NFL final score is achieved for the first time in league history has been glitching.

“Scorigami,” a term coined by sports internet personality Jon Bois, refers to games whose final score has never happened before, and most often applied to the NFL. For years, an account on X/Twitter has sent out updates whenever a Scorigami is achieved, such as the Texans’ 32–12 win over the Chargers last season. 

The account also posts the odds that a current game will end in a Scorigami (Super Bowl LIX had an 82.96% chance late in the fourth quarter) and how many times a final score has happened before. Super Bowl LIX’s rare final score of 40–22 had happened once before in 2004, not a Scorigami.

But this season, the Scorigami bot has been unreliable, erratic, and flat-out inaccurate. 

The account has missed Scorigamis. Some posts have said there were “0 games” of precedent for common scores. The bot dumped more than a dozen scores and predictions Thursday afternoon in a torrent.

On Sunday, the bot tweeted that the score of the Buccaneers’ win over the 49ers, 30–19, was not a Scorigami, but in the same tweet it contradicted itself, saying the score had happened 0 times before. In reality, Sunday was the 10th iteration of that score. The bot reacted exactly the same way to the Panthers’ 30–27 win over the Cowboys, a score that has happened nearly 100 other times.

The account has more than a half-million followers, and NFL fans are distraught by its recent issues. Some of them have even started adding a community note with the correct information when the bot gets a score wrong.

“It’s a great little community that is definitely concerned right now,” sports media personality and Scorigami enthusiast Jake Marsh told Front Office Sports. “It’s kind of a part of history that you can check off each time it happens, just because there are only so many games each year.”

The bot’s creator, Dave Mattingly, told FOS that his attempts to work around X/Twitter platform changes are ultimately causing Scorigami’s recent glitches. He’s asking for fans’ patience while he troubleshoots.

“I’m aware of the recent issues with the Scorigami bot and I apologize for any confusion they’ve caused,” Mattingly said. “This season, X has made some changes to their platform that have contributed to some of the recent problems. I am actively working to get the bot running smoothly again, though as this is a personal side project that I maintain in my spare time, I can’t always respond to issues as quickly as I’d like.”

Since Elon Musk bought the platform, X has changed the rules for accessing the free version of its application programming interface (API). In 2023, X suspended access to its free API, restricting many bot accounts created by humans who weren’t paying for API access. Twitter has since reinstated free access, but it’s extremely limited, and the higher tiers are far from cheap.

Mattingly, a software developer by trade, said the Scorigami account is on the free API tier because the bot “has always been a personal project that I’ve never made any money from.” He says that since last season, X has “greatly decreased” how many posts per day a bot on the free tier can make; he says the method he uses for the Scorigami bot is limited to 16 automated posts per 24 hours, though he can manually add more. Mattingly says that some of the recent glitches “stem from my attempts to throttle and queue messages to stay within those new limits.”

The good news for fans is that the NFL Scorigami website is still up to date, showing both of this year’s Scorigamis to date: the Bills’ 41–40 win over the Ravens, and the 40–40 tie between the Cowboys and Packers. A Scorigami bot—not run by Mattingly—on X counterpart Bluesky appears to still be going strong.

The 2025–26 NBA season is a week away. While teams could still make some roster changes, most of the key moves have been decided—meaning the upcoming payroll for each team is fairly clear.

The Cavaliers are by far the league’s biggest spender.

Cleveland has the NBA’s highest payroll at $228.6 million, about $23 million more than the next highest team, according to data from Spotrac. The Cavaliers saw a salary spike compared to last season as the extensions of Donovan Mitchell (three years, $150.3 million) and Evan Mobley (five years, $269.1 million) hit the books. 

FOS graphic

The Cavaliers are the only second-apron violator entering next season and have a $163.8 million tax penalty for a total bill of $392.4 million, per Spotrac. That number is $118 million more than any other team. 

However, their investment may pay off as it is expected to be one of the top teams in a depleted Eastern Conference. The Pacers, last year’s Eastern Conference champion, will be without star Tyrese Haliburton all season due to an Achilles tear, while Celtics star Jayson Tatum may face the same fate.

Boston was projected to pay $500 million in payroll and tax penalties, but it made significant changes to its roster to cut its bill by more than half. It is still No. 6 in payroll at about $200 million, but its total bill after tax will be under $240 million.

Big Markets, Big Spenders

The league’s big-market teams comprise most of the top 10, including the Warriors (No. 2), Knicks (No. 3), and Lakers (No. 7). 

A few other notable teams in the top 10 include the Clippers at No. 9 and the Sixers at No. 10. Los Angeles has been under the microscope since reporter and podcaster Pablo Torre alleged it circumvented the salary cap to pay Kawhi Leonard last month. If found guilty, a potential penalty from the NBA could be voiding the remaining two years and $100.3 million on Leonard’s contract.

The Sixers are coming off a nightmare season where they finished with a 24–58 record as their trio of stars—Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey—dealt with injuries. They are the highest-paid trio in the entire NBA entering the 2025–26 season. 

The defending champion Thunder are No. 14 in the league in payroll ($186.88 million), but they are already projected to lead the league in salary next year once the max extensions for Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren kick in.