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Bill Belichick’s college coaching career is getting weirder by the day.
In the past week, the 74-year-old’s relationship with 24-year-old Jordon Hudson has grown from gossip curiosity to mainstream problem. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Hudson’s involvement scuttled UNC’s plans to appear on HBO’s Hard Knocks documentary series. This came after Hudson, serving as both girlfriend and publicist/advisor, interrupted an on-camera interview Belichick was giving to CBS when he was asked how the two met.
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The developments have confused many of Belichick’s former NFL players, who remember a coach who believed distractions were the enemy of on-field success. Contradicting statements by the coach and CBS on Wednesday only heightened the tension.
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All of this is being closely watched by Belichick’s new employer, which surprised all of college football last year when it announced a five-year, $50 million deal to bring the Super Bowl champion to Chapel Hill. The New York Postreported this week that UNC leadership had a “growing sense this could become a problem.”
That problem likely hasn’t reached a point where the school would seriously consider moving on—a UNC rep declined to comment—but if it did decide to fire one of the sport’s most famous coaches before his first game, here’s what it would cost.
Under the terms of Belichick’s deal, if he’s fired without cause before Dec. 31, 2027, the school would owe him everything he was set to be paid up through that date. That’s $26.7 million right now, according to Sportico’s reading of the contract. It’s essentially 2 2/3 years of his $10 million annual salary.
It would be among the largest buyouts in college football history, but nowhere near the largest. Texas A&M owed Jimbo Fisher $76.8 million when he was fired in 2023.
To put the $26.7 million into UNC context, that’s almost exactly what UNC sold in tickets to football and men’s basketball combined last year. That total is $28.9 million, per Sportico‘s college finance database. The athletic department’s budget in fiscal 2024 was $155.9 million.
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Depending on how the situation unfolds, UNC could also potentially try to fire him for cause. To do that it would need to point to some breach of contract, and while the wording in Belichick’s deal is vague enough to create potential avenues—there are standard morals, reputation and confidentiality clauses—it’s hard to imagine the school ever considering that route. It would almost certainly invite legal challenge, and schools have historically been reticent to take that step lest it signal to the market that it is not “coach friendly.”
One final wrinkle that may be notable, and may be irrelevant. To receive his buyout should he be fired without cause, Belichick would need to sign a post-termination agreement that accepts the decision and absolves the school from legal exposure. When UNC published his signed contract, it included a Belichick signature after the post-termination document. Asked repeatedly whether that meant Belichick had signed that document already, a representative for the school repeatedly declined to answer. “The necessary pages have been signed,” is all the detail the school would provide.
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