What happened to the NFL RedZone that I loved?
To put things simply, the NFL RedZone is one of the greatest inventions in the history of the world. Since 2009, Scott Hanson has been at the helm of the channel that offers bounce-around coverage to all of the most exciting parts – and scoring plays – in the NFL. There’s nothing better than plopping down on your couch, turning on NFL RedZone, and taking in all of the action… literally all of it.
But football fans started to get concerned when they found out that ESPN had acquired the NFL Network – which produces NFL RedZone – in a deal that gave the National Football League a 10% ownership stake in the sports network earlier this year. Nothing overtly problematic about that… but let’s get to the juicier part of the story, shall we?
NFL RedZone floated the idea of commercials being plugged into the former commercial-less program late last season, and even started testing out the inclusion of ads in the last couple of weeks of RedZone in 2024. That test run turned into a full-blown implementation, as advertisements and commercials have been featured in every edition of NFL RedZone this season.
In other words, the slogan of the channel – “Seven hours of commercial free football” – is dead. And we knew that going into this year, since host Scott Hanson changed it to this:
“Seven hours of RedZone football starts right now.”
Just doesn’t hit the same.
And somehow, the situation has gotten more dire as the 2025 season has rolled on, and football fans might not have even noticed it. When it was first announced that commercials were coming to RedZone, only four 30-second ads were sprinkled throughout the seven hours. That might not seem like a lot, but for people paying a premium for the channel, that’s entirely way too much.
This past Sunday, the total ad time was up exponentially, according to the Sports Business Journal. You might need to sit down before you read this… the NFL RedZone channel ran 16 ads in the seven hours that it was on:
“The NFL RedZone Channel ran 16 sponsored elements during Week 13’s Sunday slate of games, according to an SBJ analysis of the broadcast. The telecast ran eight 15-second double-box advertisements (two minutes total over seven hours), evenly split across the early and late windows.
Once play wrapped up, RedZone also ran a 30-second double-box ad with DraftKings that closed the broadcast.”
I think I’m gonna be sick.
Clearly, we’re headed towards a future where NFL RedZone plays a lot like a traditional broadcast. Commercials will be plentiful, and if we’re lucky, we’ll even miss some of the action so we can hear about a credit card’s newest points program.
All I’m gonna say is this: If you start putting more and more ads in a product that was originally advertised as commercial free, you should probably start charging less and less for said product. Even as NFL RedZone entered into the 2025 season knowing they were going to run more ads, they did not lower the price in the slightest.
They’re just having a great time stuffing their already fat pockets.
Can anything be done about it, you might be asking? The only real thing that could stick it to the man in this situation is to a) stop paying for the product and b) stop watching. That might be what it takes to stop the ads from being included on RedZone… but will the NFL RedZone fanatics be able to go a week – or more – without their precious, whip-around coverage?
