Credit: NFL RedZone
It used to be that you didn’t have to worry about ads during NFL RedZone.
Then, a few popped up in 2024.
In 2025, ads became the norm across RedZone’s coverage, starting with four during Week 1 and eventually ramping up to 16 during Week 13.
Host Scott Hanson wants viewers to know that ad creep will calm down at the start of the 2026 NFL season, and they can expect to see fewer than last year.
“I could tell you from where we ended last year, there will not be more,” Hanson told Front Office Sports’s Baker Machado this week. “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.”
That isn’t to say that ads are going away. Those days are almost certainly over. However, Hanson says that while segment sponsorships will remain the norm, viewers won’t be inundated with as many commercials as last season.
“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.”
Hanson, who, as always, noted that these decisions are above his pay grade, still understands that viewers will be keeping score of how many ads they see after years of promises that they’d never be subjected to one while watching RedZone.
“Our promise to you is we never miss a touchdown,” he said. “We only sneak these in when the team is walking back to the huddle during at least a little bit of a dead period in the game, and it’s one 15-second standalone commercial at a time… I would just tell fans this: if you loved RedZone two years ago before there was ever a 15-second standalone commercial, try us this year and see if it’s not still the show that you love to watch and set your calendar by every year. I think we will deliver the way we always have for our great fans.”