The NFL and ESPN announced a major deal, detailing an agreement between the sides that will see ESPN acquire several NFL properties, such as NFL Redzone and NFL Network, and the NFL acquiring a 10% stake in ESPN.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell spoke about the massive deal and the implications it may have.
“It’ll continue to be produced right here in this building,” Roger Goodell said from NFL Network’s broadcast studio, according to On3. when asked about the future of NFL RedZone. “It will be the NFL RedZone. I don’t think fans will see any difference to that.”
Goodell also mentioned that ESPN could now move forward with a college football version of NFL Redzone
“Obviously, in the context of that, though, ESPN purchased the RedZone name, and they will be able to utilize that for other sports, college football and other things, and I think that could be an exciting thing for our fans also to see a RedZone, maybe in college football or other sports. That’s something that they now own and have the ability to do that. But as far as Red Zone, NFL Red Zone, there won’t be any changes for our plans.”
Fans reacted to Goodell’s revelation on social media.
“ESPN would leave a 4th and Goal tie game in the B1G for a kickoff of Bama vs Citadel,” one fan wrote on Twitter.
“They tried Goalline and it didn’t work because of the way college football is and the fact that game times aren’t set neatly. Also fox/cbs won’t allow their games on this so you won’t have live action from half the games,” someone else added.
“Well practically all college football games are aired nationally so there really isn’t a need for this like in the NFL where they don’t let you watch 70% of the games without paying extra,” one person wrote.
It’ll be interesting to see what changes ESPN has in store.