Every Sunday, during the NFL’s regular season, for the past several year’s host Scott Hanson welcomed “NFL RedZone” viewers with a growling catch phrase:
“Seven hours of commercial-free football starts now!”
Hanson’s sign-on will be noticeably different this coming Sunday, as will the broadcast, as the host confirmed during an appearance on the “Pat McAfee Show” that RedZone will feature commercials in some capacity.
“When you see me come on the air,” he told the show’s hosts. “We’re gonna hit the Octobox, we’ve got eight games in the early window, taking you around to all the different cities.
“And then when we get into it ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s been more than 250 days since the first full NFL Sunday but we are back! And 7 hours of RedZone football starts now.’”
The broadcast has featured ad elements before and experimented with commercials last season, a move that spurred viewers to complain directly to Hanson.
Hanson told McAfee that he’s “just the host.”
“The business folks handle the business and I have no say over different elements that could or could not be in the show,” Hanson said.
The NFL’s “business folks” have been working hard this year as the NFL and ESPN reached a blockbuster agreement earlier this year that will place the league’s media outlets like the NFL Network under the ESPN banner, including a license for ESPN to use the RedZone brand. However, this does not take effect until after this season.
Why commercials? Why now?
The answer to every NFL question is often the same — money. The league’s singular focus is to grow the business and much has been written about Roger Goodell’s prophetic words in 2010 when he unveiled a bold target: The NFL would hit $25 billion in revenue by 2027. Sportico estimated that NFL’s 32 teams generated an estimated $22.2 billion last year, up 8 percent from 2023.
You don’t grow at that pace by making anything sacrosanct, whether playing games on Christmas Day or promising viewers seven hours of commerical-free television as RedZone famously has via the words of longtime host Hanson. (The Red Zone is estimated to have about a million diehards who watch weekly.)
If history holds, viewers will complain today on social media (and maybe the first couple of weeks) and then get used to the change. I do feel for you. But the reality is NASCAR fans have adapted to “double boxes” that show an advertisement on one side and a live race on the other. The NFL will continue to find new ways to create revenue and this is one of them. — Richard Deitsch
(Photo: David Becker / Getty Images)
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