A true constitutional crisis has emerged in America – commercials are being permanently added this season to NFL RedZone. But while the nation takes to the streets in protest (or at least sends a bunch of angry tweets online), Adam Schefter sees nothing wrong.
It seems that nobody in or around the NFL anticipated the backlash to RedZone no longer being a commercial-free paradise for football fans. The ads were tested last season and are now being fully introduced for the 2025 campaign.
But in spite of the league trying to clarify that the ads will be minimally intrusive – just a few split screen commercials over the course of seven hours of football – the backlash has not decelerated.
If anything, attempts to defend the move have been met by even more of an outcry of disapproval.
Enter ESPN NFL insider extraordinaire Adam Schefter.
In quote-tweeting the announcement from RedZone host Scott Hanson on The Pat McAfee Show, Schefter defended the NFL’s move by showing the calculations of just how many ads viewers will see on RedZone and how it is significantly less than what anyone would see elsewhere on television.
Some added clarity: NFL RedZone is seven hours — 420 minutes. Over that time, viewers will be served 1-2 total minutes of ads in :15 increments. This comes out to anywhere between 0.25% – 0.5% of the total time, considerably less than other sports/entertainment programs. https://t.co/7JyLSLi30E
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 4, 2025
However, Schefter was met with a deluge of dissatisfied replies as his tweet was ratioed into oblivion. His message has a whopping 11,000+ replies. The replies and quote-tweets are still filled with fans upset that their seven hours of commercial-free football is now relegated to the history books. Likewise, Pat McAfee’s opinion that fans didn’t care about commercials was met with equal opposition to the point where he backtracked and apologized for his original take.
It’s just one tweet, but this take from Adam Schefter does nobody any good on multiple levels.
Let’s start with misreading the room and failing to meet fans where they are. NFL fans aren’t upset that a small fraction of a percentage of their RedZone experience will have side-by-side ads for less time than it takes to go to the fridge and get another drink. It’s the principle of the matter.
Fans are upset because 15 years of an ad-free product now has ads. That’s a big deal! They are also upset because the platform they already pay a premium for has made their experience worse. And the message coming from the NFL is that they simply don’t care.
Nobody in their right mind thinks that the NFL will stop here when it comes to RedZone ads. It’s the business equivalent of “If you give a mouse a cookie…” and in a few years we will likely see many more commercials in and around RedZone.
And the miniscule amount of ads makes it even more of a miscalculation from the NFL. The potential revenue from these commercials (limited as they are) is a mere drop in the ocean in the NFL’s national revenue totaling $13.8 billion. Why sacrifice so much good will for so little return on investment?
Then there is Schefter’s employer, ESPN.
ESPN and the NFL are both fighting an uphill battle when it comes to the independence that can be practiced from both parties in the wake of their proposed equity deal. There is a very real public perception that ESPN won’t be able to cover the league fairly moving forward.
Furthermore, the timing of Schefter’s tweet couldn’t be worse given that ESPN is being unfairly blamed for this move with the masses blaming Bristol after the equity deal announcement. This comes in spite of the facts that the deal won’t even be finalized until next year at the earliest and the NFL will continue to own and operate RedZone.
Of course there is no grand conspiracy linking Adam Schefter, Jimmy Pitaro, Roger Goodell, and Applebee’s on these RedZone ads.
But ESPN’s most prominent reporter delivering messaging favorable to the league to aggrieved fans is not going to help the PR battle for ESPN or the NFL.