Football fans are fired up to welcome the NFL back into their lives, but the start of the 2025 season also is bringing a change that has some wanting to blow a whistle, throw a flag and cry “unsportsmanlike conduct!”
Since 2009, NFL RedZone has offered a seven-hour Sunday binge of football, with whip-around coverage of all of the games that includes showing “every touchdown from every game,” as host Scott Hanson famously says each week. Part of the appeal has always been “seven hours of commercial-free football,” as Hanson would put it at the beginning of each broadcast.
Well, commercials finally are creeping into the broadcast. Split-screen ads began during Week 15 of last season, and Hanson confirmed Wednesday that they are set to continue for the 2025 season.
That has some fans throwing a bit of a fit. They are upset because RedZone is a premium channel and already requires a subscription, at costs varying from $11 to $15 per month depending on the cable, satellite or streaming provider.
Some fans took to social media and threatened to unsubscribe or organize protests.
Will they actually follow through? Maybe some will. But most football fans LOVE football, which is the whole reason the NFL RedZone channel exists at all.
Really, this is much ado about very little.
Plenty of other premium networks air commercials. The ones on RedZone will not even take over the full screen, as the action will continue in a split-box format that RedZone viewers know well.
Nor will the ads be plentiful. Front Office Sports reported Thursday that just four 15-second ads will air across the seven-hour broadcast this Sunday. Could this change down the line? Of course, but it seems unlikely that any future changes would dramatically alter the foundation of RedZone and its appeal.
Football is back. The first game of the 2025 NFL season kicks off on Thursday with the Dallas Cowboys visiting the Philadelphia Eagles (5:20 p.m. PDT/8:20 p.m. EDT on NBC and Peacock). RedZone and its seven hours of football are only days away.
Seven hours of football vs. one minute of commercials. Bet on the excitement of the action on the field to easily beat out the minor annoyance of a few ads.
-- Joel Odom writes about trending topics in news, life and culture, and sports. Reach him at 503-221-8594,jodom@oregonian.com or@jkodom on Blue Sky.
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