On the first day of the National Football League season, there were many questions to be answered about players and teams as months of anticipation came to a halt. In the media space, sports fans and consumers were wondering about the performance of NFL Sunday Ticket, which is operating through YouTube and YouTube TV for the first time in its 29-year history. Count Kansas City radio host Bob Fescoe among those changing their consumption habits, watching NFL RedZone for the first time ever on Sunday.
Google is paying the NFL $2 billion annually in a seven-year contract to be the exclusive home of the out-of-market package, ending its tenure on DIRECTV. Since the service is no longer on the multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD), it also marked the end of its exclusive RedZone channel. Instead, the company is now carrying NFL Media’s RedZone show, which is hosted by Scott Hanson, and welcomed a new legion of fans for the first time yesterday for seven hours of commercial-free football.
After 24 years of having NFL Sunday Ticket on DIRECTV, Fescoe made the decision not to pay for the service in its new home and instead is opting to watch out-of-market games through the RedZone channel. The assimilation process took some time, but is something he eventually came to accept as the afternoon went on.
“I felt like I was watching live highlights and didn’t have a real investment in the games watching this,” Fescoe said on Monday morning. “I didn’t feel like I was invested in the games; [instead], I felt like it was more a movie or a TV show as opposed to watching live football games.”
Fescoe quipped that the best part of the service was that when he was asked to complete a task by his wife, he would say that he would do it at the next commercial break. As he said this, he wholeheartedly knew that there are no commercials on the channel, instead simply presenting football unimpeded for hours on end.
“Did I like RedZone? It’s okay; it’s a nice tool to have in my toolbox, but I still would rather watch full games,” Fescoe said. “[But] it is nice though to be able to go to that when the full game that they give you is a turd.”
For co-host Josh Klingler, he does not get to watch NFL RedZone that often since he works as the sideline reporter for the Kansas City Chiefs Radio Network. Since the Chiefs played on Thursday night in the NFL Kickoff game this week, he had the rare opportunity to watch the rest of the games around the league.
Even so, he would rather focus on one game in front of him since he does not gamble, nor is he playing fantasy football this year. Multitasking when it comes to watching football is a task that is less than desirable to many people who are accustomed to watching full-length games, but it can serve its purpose when certain matchups end up being lopsided.
“I had CBS on one TV watching that early Browns game and then I had the RedZone on the other,” Fescoe shared. “That Browns game clearly got out of hand, so I was paying more attention to the RedZone.”
Fescoe, however, is frustrated by the current media landscape where programming is divided among numerous platforms that all have their separate fees. Consuming sports right now takes a lot of effort, leaving him yearning for a day where he can simply sit and use his remote to flip between all of the games going on in the sports universe. While such a proposition is difficult to foresee because of differences in media rights contracts and expirations thereof, he is holding out hope that everything will ultimately be bundled together – similar to a cable subscription – in the future.
“You pay $200 a month; you get every game that’s out there on one app,” Fescoe proposed. “Just let’s streamline this thing and make it easy because that’s what I’m essentially paying for cable right now; I’m paying that price when you factor everything in. Give me one app – call it the ‘Sports App’ – and I’ll pay $200 a month for it.”
