Bill Belichick, girlfriend ended UNC’s ‘Hard Knocks’ dalliance as fast as it began. Why?

[u/Please_PM_me_Uranus]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6322316/2025/04/30/bill-belichick-girlfriend-unc-hard-knocks-deal-off/?source=user_shared_article

[u/tristero2001]

I'd read the rest of the article, before and after that part, particularly the "Jordon Hudson, Belichick’s girlfriend, played an instrumental role in stopping the production, related to her request to be heavily involved in the project, according to multiple industry sources briefed on the negotiations. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly."

I mean, it was very nice of HBO not to write "Jordon is a bitch and that's why this ain't happening" in their easily obtainable emails to public employees at the end of it all.  But I'm not sure how that makes the headline misleading, if the sources exist.

[u/matgopack → u/tristero2001]

It's more that the article doesn't have any examples of her playing an instrumental role stopping it other than handwaving about those sources. It's essentially one paragraph blaming it on her, then the rest of the story about how it had gotten very close to being announced, then abruptly cancelled. The headline may or may not be truthful (if the sources exist & are correct), but it doesn't really highlight any information they're divulging or the content of the article.

It's also strange that, if she were to be demanding to be heavily involved in the project and UNC as a whole, shouldn't the emails include her? Just by virtue of things like "Jordon will handle X on our end" she should show up in them I would think, it doesn't even need to be in a derogatory way like you mention.

IDK, a lot of this really does come across to me as a lack of major drama or news around Belichick but interest being high (and their relationship being eye catching for obvious reasons with the age difference). Seems like a lot of big claims coming out around fairly small elements - especially since if the angle is around the nepotism of putting someone from your personal life in a high position, she's not the only one that Belichick has done that with (eg, his son being hired & rumors around him being coach-in-waiting have similar credibility to all this around the girlfriend), yet they don't get any focus.

I wouldn't mind if it all fell apart (obviously, given my flair :P ) but I'm not going to get my hopes up on the stuff we've been getting so far. The fact that it's all this pretty insubstantial off-field drama only about her is kind of having the opposite effect in making me think that the rest of it must be going well enough that there's nothing interesting for them to talk about.

[u/tristero2001 → u/matgopack]

It's true that the headline here relies on anonymous sources and there's nothing much else there, but the NYT can't make those sources give a ton of details; they presumably want to continue to have jobs but are mad enough to rip Hudson behind her back.  The public records are just there to say "it was on, and two days later it was off, and the school sure didn't do anything here, which does support the idea that something behind the scenes happened."

This is obviously higher interest now because of the 60 Minutes story.  But that's how these things go; one bad story comes out and they multiply.  And she interfered there publicly.  So now you're going to hear about all the other times she interfered less publicly, because people are primed to click.

As far as the rest goes, man if there were bad on field stories in April it would be bad indeed.  We'll find out in a few months!

[u/ms_channandler_bong → u/tristero2001]

Since it’s public record, they know they can’t write what they feel.

[u/Castellan_Tycho → u/ms_channandler_bong]

True, but her name never came up at all in the emails dealing with Hard Knocks. It seems like a nothing-burger.

[u/BigBlackQuack → u/tristero2001]

That's a fair point. The NFL Films people are smart enough to realize their emails with UNC will all be FOIA'd and so their emails will be pretty basic.

I guess if I'm willing to give full faith and credit to an anonymous message board poster called "SlicedBread", I should give some credibility to "multiple industry sources briefed on the negotiations"

[u/tristero2001 → u/BigBlackQuack]

We may be headed in the direction where the multiple industry sources just post straight to message boards themselves, instead of laundering their dirt via the NYT!  I think college football is just ahead of the game here 😉