The game of football is perfectly suited for television. Like most sports, football provides a natural break at the end of each quarter or half of play, as well as after a team scores, where the TV broadcast can cut to a commercial. Unlike other sports, a change in possession in football requires a full replacement of every player on the field, giving broadcasters additional opportunities for ad breaks as players run off and on the field.
Football fans know this much before sitting down to watch: They must endure a large number of beer, truck and other commercials. That’s why NFL RedZone, without these fillers, was such a magical creation. Since its inception in 2009, the RedZone channel sprang to life each Sunday during the season, with host Scott Hanson proclaiming, “Seven hours of commercial-free football starts now!”
Then, on The Pat McAfee Show yesterday, Hanson confirmed that the era of commercial-free RedZone is over.
Give us a preview of what it’s gonna sound like on Sunday @ScottHanson #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/fyRcAnoqlQ
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) September 3, 2025
ESPN and NFL deal
A new era of RedZone begins with ESPN in charge. ESPN is acquiring the NFL Network and other NFL assets, including RedZone, in a deal that gives the NFL a 10% stake in ESPN. And those 7 straight hours of RedZone coverage, bouncing around from game to game on Sunday afternoon, showing every touchdown scored in every game, were apparently too valuable to ESPN to allow them to stay commercial-free.
It remains to be seen how frequent the RedZone’s commercial breaks will be and how long they’ll last, but Hanson stressed that RedZone will keep its focus on showing every score on Sunday afternoons.
“We are not going to sacrifice any great football for any of the business side of things,” Hanson told McAfee. “We will not miss a touchdown.”
Nothing good lasts forever
Like most NFL fans, I received this news with both resignation and disappointment. With the amount of money the NFL makes and the popularity of the RedZone channel, I knew it wouldn’t stay commercial-free forever. But I’m worried how different my RedZone experience will be this season, starting this Sunday. Anything more than minimal and short ad breaks could ruin the flow of Scott Hanson conducting that seamless whip-around coverage.
Read more: How to watch the NFL this season without cable
As a Cleveland Browns fan, I’ve become a regular RedZone viewer over the years. Most seasons, it’s been more fun to keep tabs on the players on my fantasy football teams via RedZone than it is to follow another sad Browns season. The real tragedy here could be a commercial-laden RedZone driving me back to watching Browns games in full, an activity that’s almost guaranteed to cause a negative impact to my emotional well-being.
Then again, if commercials push me away from RedZone, maybe I’ll take up hiking this fall. That way, I’ll forget for at least a few hours the misery of rooting for my inept NFL team and corporate interests corrupting all that is true and good in this world.
