Author: Ben Swain


Ben Swain

Hoping to cut his journalistic teeth on the Iraq war, Swain was instead mistakenly assigned the North Carolina sports beat as an intern out of college. He threw himself into the work with the same fervor he anticipated taking to the front lines and has become one of the most respected voices in modern sports media. He’s also a Duke fan from Durham County who went State. And Guilford.

SportsChannel8: The Canes Post-Mortem

Articles

You always hear that the Carolina Hurricanes are special because they’re able to bring UNC, Duke and State fans together. It’s such a tired take at this point because it implies that cheering for the Canes is something that area fans do in their spare time, and completely ignores the large-and-still-growing population of people in… Read more »

2020: A Game of Runs

8itorials, Opinion

Our favorite team, whoever that might be, is up by 4 coming out of the under 16 media timeout and feeling good about the way the game is going. But then there’s a turnover and the other team hits a three. They press and force another turnover that leads to a layup. We break the… Read more »

Carolina Hurricanes gone till November

The Carolina Hurricanes calendar typically looks something like this: Media day the first week of September. Training camp starts the week after. Opening night in early October. And while in many ways the NHL was able to be the same ol’ NHL in nothing-is-the-same 2020, the schedule isn’t one of those ways. The new calendar:… Read more »

Is College Basketball Going to Die

Big news hit the college basketball off-season last week as two 5-star recruits decided to spend their “one and done” season in a new program developed by the NBA’s G League. The news was big enough on its own, but because of the current barren desert of a sports world we’re living in right now,… Read more »

8itorial: Goodbye, Panthers

Articles

You’re going to see a lot of fans claiming they’ll never watch the Carolina Panthers again. That’s a lie. They’ll watch, just like the rest of us will continue to watch. There’s still Christian McCaffrey. There’s still  the other guy who played last year but I can’t remember his name right now. And if the… Read more »

SportsChannel8’s Bracket of Stuff

Articles

Contest rules: 1) Download the bracket and fill out your picks. 2) Scan or take a picture of your bracket and tweet @sportschannel8 or email sc8@sportschannel8.com. 3) Listen each day to 99.9FM, stream on WRALSportsFan.com or the WRAL SportsFan app, or check our Twitter account for daily updates on the games as we literally flip… Read more »

How to survive coronavirus online

Articles

Over the past week, our radio show (10-Noon on 99.9FM or streaming online at www.wralsportsfan.com) has been fortunate to have Dr. Sallie Permar join us to talk about the coronavirus pandemic and ways to ebb the spread of COVID-19. She’s a world-renowned expert in the field and you should listen to her. Me? I’m neither… Read more »

Influencing our way out of the attendance crisis

Opinion

Earlier today, ESPN posted a story about English Premier League giant Manchester City’s effort to hire influencers to improve the gameday atmosphere on Champions League nights. Man City are hiring 📱 pic.twitter.com/RgmZgEOKcC — ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) October 22, 2019 L.O.L. Right? Who the hell would even think to put that out there to set themselves… Read more »