It looks like we’ll be getting a closer look at Bill Belichick and the North Carolina Tar Heels after all.
According to Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel, a docuseries focused on Belichick’s first season in Chapel Hill is heading to Hulu. At this point, it’s unclear when the series — which will be produced by EverWonder Studio — will debut or which portion of the Tar Heels’ season it will focus on.
News of the upcoming UNC Hulu series marks the culmination of an offseason’s worth of stories regarding such a project.
In February, Glasspiegel reported that North Carolina would be featured on the offseason version of HBO’s Hard Knocks. Just before an official announcement was set to be made, however, NFL Films pulled the plug, with subsequent reporting suggesting that the decision was made over concerns regarding Belichick’s girlfriend, Jordon Hudson.
According to The Athletic, the 24-year-old Hudson sought creative control and partial ownership of the project. The Athletic’s reporting also revealed that NFL Films had learned that the former Bridgewater State cheerleader — who lists herself as the chief operating officer of Belichick Productions — had been in negotiations with EverWonder on a similar docuseries.
At this point, it’s unclear what degree of creative control — if any — North Carolina and/or Belichick will have over the Hulu project. But that seemed to be a reoccurring theme as members of the Tar Heels program explained why the Hard Knocks deal fell apart.
“The problem was that we control the story we need to tell here. And the story that we want to tell doesn’t end after we play TCU,” Tar Heels general manager Michael Lombardi told The Pat McAfee Show in March after the Hard Knocks series was scrapped. “The story that we want to tell is about how we’re rebuilding this program, how we’re going to honor the great players that have come before us. How we’re going to re-store Tar Heel football, and make this stadium come alive on Saturday afternoons, like a lot of the other schools in the ACC. That’s the story we want to tell.”
Reading between the lines, it seems like a safe bet the Hulu series will focus on the 2025 season as a whole. And it’s perhaps an even a safer bet that North Carolina will, in fact, “control the story.”
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.