For years, host Scott Hanson introduced NFL RedZone Channel by welcoming viewers to “Seven hours of commercial-free football.” That all changed when the NFL decided to make even more money by selling ads on the product, which viewers are already paying to watch.
Fans were unhappy, for an obvious reason: The commercials represented billionaire NFL owners enriching themselves at the cost of the quality of the fans’ experience.
The commercials aren’t going away, but Hanson says there will be fewer of them this year.
“I could tell you from where we ended last year, there will not be more,” Hanson told Baker Machado of Front Office Sports. “In fact, the actual ads that you see, there will be fewer of what we call the 15-second commercials with the audio going and the product and whatnot.”
Hanson said the promos from sponsors he reads will be a major element of RedZone.
“Because we’ve done things like the ‘Mercedes-Benz Drive of the Day’ or the ‘Allstate Good Hands Play of the Day’—we’ve done those things, but that’s not considered an outright commercial,” Hanson said. “But the 15-second, ‘okay, we’re on the Dallas Cowboys, first and 10, they get five yards, they’re walking back to the huddle, and then we interject that 15 second standalone commercial?’ There will be fewer at the beginning of the year this year than we ended with at the end of last year. I can confirm that.”
That’s a step in the right direction, but the right move would be for RedZone Channel to go back to what made it great in the first place: No commercial breaks, and uninterrupted football for fans who love the sport so much they don’t want to miss a moment. Those are the fans the NFL should appreciate most, but those fans still don’t have seven hours of commercial-free football anymore.
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