How do you capture the sports year Charlotte had in 2025?
Let’s count the ways.
Let’s start with the victories: the league record broken by the city’s scrappy Major League Soccer franchise, a fun run to a championship by the city’s hockey team, an unbelievable Johnson C. Smith football season.
Let’s move on to the losses: the strange departure of Mark Williams from the Charlotte Hornets, a (refreshingly) up-and-down season from the Carolina Panthers.
And now let’s factor in everything else: high school football coaches using their collective voice, Michael Jordan suing NASCAR — and a tragedy no one saw coming.
We might not have loved the sports year of 2025 to the depth and breadth and height our souls can reach, but after highlighting all that’s happened, as voted on by The Charlotte Observer sports department, it’s impossible to deny that this year was memorable.
These were Charlotte’s Top 10 sports moments of 2025, listed roughly in chronological order. And let’s raise a glass to an equally memorable 2026.
Carolina Ascent wins USL Super League regular-season
It’s difficult to overstate Carolina Ascent accomplishments in its inaugural season in the USL Super League. Carolina led the league in goals scored (45), attendance and wins — and claimed the USL Players’ Shield in mid-May. While the Ascent’s magical playoff run ended in the semifinals — thanks to a 120th-minute goal from Fort Lauderdale United — the Ascent cemented itself as part of Charlotte’s sports landscape in 2025, and has justifiably big dreams for the future.
Charlotte Checkers reach Calder Cup playoffs
“An unfinished story.” That was the first sentence Colin Cerniglia used in his June 2025 story to describe the end of the Charlotte Checkers’ 2025 season. Charlotte, buoyed by over 8,000 hockey fans regularly rocking Bojangles Coliseum, fell short in its quest for its first championship since 2019. It was still an enjoyable and fulfilling season nonetheless — fit with a pianist getting his due, a Stanley Cup visit and a team wonderfully gelling together. As the emotional leader of the team, Rasmus Asplund, told reporters after the Checkers’ final loss: “The city made me love the game again, and I will always be appreciative of that.”
NBA Draft night: Mark Williams, Kon Knueppel and the future of the Hornets
Many knew the 2025 NBA Draft would be impactful for the city of Charlotte. But this impactful? On that June night, the Hornets selected Kon Knueppel, the former Duke star, with the fourth overall pick — and then a few hours later, the franchise traded Mark Williams to the Phoenix Suns for a package that included the No. 29 selection and a 2029 first-rounder. The Williams trade was particularly newsy: The forward’s departure came four months after the original deal of sending him to the Los Angeles Lakers for Dalton Knecht and draft compensation was rescinded due to a failed physical.
Knueppel, has been an absolute dream on and off the court and has, for the most part, fended off injury in his first season in the NBA. The Hornets, however, are still well below .500 and need a massive 2026 push to end their nearly decade-long playoff drought.
Charlotte FC ties MLS record
Charlotte FC tied the MLS record with its ninth straight win in September — and the squad did so in front of 35,607 fans in Bank of America Stadium and by stunning the Leo Messi-led Inter Miami. This was a special milestone in a special season for the franchise, which continues to ascend under the direction of head coach Dean Smith. In the team’s season-ending loss in November — a 3-1 defeat to NYCFC at home that kicked CLTFC out of the first round of the playoffs — Smith gave words to such a rough end: “Sometimes, sport is cruel. We didn’t get the result that we deserved tonight.” Considering all Charlotte FC did in 2025, that feels right.
CMS football coaches threatened to boycott over pay
Officials at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools were bracing for a potential boycott by the district’s football coaches in October, according to an internal memo obtained by The Charlotte Observer. Coaches were willing to sit out practices and even a game in protest of what they felt was a lack of pay. The district appeased the coaches enough to avoid a boycott — but a silent protest still took shape.
Johnson C. Smith wins first CIAA football title in 50+ years
The Johnson C. Smith Golden Bulls were crowned Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association champions for only the second time in the school’s history in November. How long in between titles? 56 years. The run was fueled by senior quarterback Kelvin Durham and led by head coach Maurice Flowers, the JCSU alum who was named CIAA coach of the year in just his fourth season at the helm. Smith’s season ended in November in the Division II playoffs — but what the team did will be remembered forever.
Duke owns Charlotte in ACC end-of-year tournaments
The first Duke ACC championship came in March. The Blue Devils basketball title happened in the Spectrum Center, in uptown Charlotte. That Blue Devils team was the unquestioned favorite to win it — even without Cooper Flagg, who missed most of it with an ankle injury. That ACC tournament championship win kick-started an impressive run to the Final Four.
Duke’s second 2025 ACC championship in Charlotte arrived in December. The football one came to be in Bank of America Stadium, thanks to a stunning win over Virginia. Those Blue Devils were the unquestioned underdogs — and their win shook up the College Football Playoffs ... and maybe even led to Notre Dame’s exclusion in the CFP. Who knows? What’s known: Duke owned Charlotte in 2025.
Michael Jordan takes on NASCAR
On Dec. 11, sports icon Michael Jordan stood next to NASCAR CEO and chairman Jim France on the steps of a courthouse in Charlotte. Both smiled. Both, in their words, had won. Fourteen months earlier, Jordan’s NASCAR Cup Series team (23XI Racing) joined with another Cup team (Front Row Motorsports) in a lawsuit claiming that NASCAR was an unlawful monopoly. The legal battle went to trial — but it ended in a rare mid-trial settlement that all parties agreed was triumphant for the future business model of the sport. Relive it all here.
NASCAR community mourns death of Greg Biffle
On Dec. 18, a plane crashed in Statesville. All seven on board were killed. Among them was the plane’s owner, Greg Biffle, a NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee whose life as a humanitarian off the track measured up to his fearlessness on it. Learn about the legacy of Biffle, a North Carolina hero, as well as those who were on the flight with him: his wife, Cristina; his daughter, Emma; his son, Ryder; Dennis Dutton; Jack Dutton; and his colleague and friend, Craig Wadsworth.
Carolina Panthers close in on first playoff berth since 2017
The Carolina Panthers enter the final week of the NFL regular season one win away from their first playoff berth since the 2017 season. It’ll all be decided on Jan. 3, 2026, when the Panthers travel to Tampa Bay in a winner-take-all matchup for the NFC South crown. The Panthers’ season looked finished at one point — particularly when they were down 17-0 in Week 5 against the Miami Dolphins. Then Rico Dowdle came alive (and started a GoFundMe?). Then Bryce Young got going. Then so too did the rest of the Panthers. Carolina has been winning and losing in impressive metronomic succession down the stretch of 2025 — and such results have set up 2026 to replete with possibility, for the franchise and city.