Last week, news of ESPN taking control of the NFL’s media assets in exchange for the league acquiring a 10% stake in the network had everyone in our industry buzzing. People had questions, concerns, and ideas.
I’ll leave the questions and concerns to people smarter than me. I have my own, but I am man enough to admit that I don’t know enough about the inner workings of the deal to say whether they are valid. What I can do is tell you the single dumbest idea I have heard in terms of what is possible now that ESPN owns NFL Media.
For the love of God, RedZone doesn’t need to be expanded into other sports. The excitement for bringing the model to college football Saturdays is the most “tell me you don’t know ball” thing I’ve ever heard.
College football and the NFL are both versions of American tackle football, but they are not the same sport. They run in two very different ways. Those differences are prohibitive to a college football version of RedZone being as necessary and exciting to its fans as the original version is to NFL fans.
College Football Is a Mess on Purpose
The NFL is a union. Thirty-two teams may compete on the field, but when it comes to business interests, they work in unison. College football is a confederacy. The conferences are rarely united. They are independent entities looking out for themselves that happen to compete for the same championship.
Paul Finebaum has talked about this a lot. He’s very aware of how hard it is to fix some of the sport’s biggest problems when none of the four power conference commissioners want to cede anything to their counterparts. “That’s really what makes college football so unique, but also it causes so many issues,” he told me last year.
NFL RedZone works because, despite various media deals, the league is in control. It has access to every game going on at the moment. A college football RedZone on ESPN’s streaming app would be subject to rights restrictions.
It couldn’t show Big Ten games because that league has deals with FOX, CBS, and NBC, not ESPN. When Notre Dame is playing at home, college football RedZone couldn’t cut to the game because it belongs to NBC. If something crazy is happening in a game involving Army, college football RedZone could cut to it. However, only if they are playing another American Conference team on the road. Otherwise, the game belongs to CBS Sports Network.
So think about this. NFL RedZone works because it has everything. Those Sunday afternoon windows have a lot going on, and there is nothing standing in the network’s or viewer’s way of seeing it all.
Every single week, college football RedZone would be missing Ohio State and Michigan. Most weeks, it would be missing Notre Dame. Those are three of the biggest brands in the country. If the Cowboys or Steelers aren’t on RedZone, it’s because they are playing on a different day. There’s never a situation where an incredibly popular team is playing and NFL RedZone just can’t show it.
And don’t hold your breath for the Big Ten to work out a special deal for their games to be included. Given the conference’s standoff with the College Football Playoff, I can’t see Commissioner Tony Petitti being eager to make any ESPN-friendly deals anytime soon.
The NFL Is the Perfect Model for RedZone
Plenty of sports enjoy the same level of fandom that the NFL does, but the NFL has its audience trained in a way that RedZone fits into perfectly.
There are two windows for kickoffs on Sunday afternoons and only two channels showing games in those windows. That means RedZone is the only way for plenty of people to see all of the action. Conversely, try finding a college football game on any given Saturday that you cannot watch.
While the popularity of sports gambling has been on the rise, fantasy football has not gone away. Every August, millions set times to draft their team. On Thursdays, they all rush to set their lineups. RedZone is the perfect product to keep up with everything a fantasy owner needs to know.
Despite many attempts to get it off the ground, fantasy college football has never been all that popular. It certainly isn’t big enough to dictate people’s lifestyles and viewing habits.
The NFL also has connectivity going for it. Just 32 teams is a pretty narrow scope. Sure, two teams that do not play in the regular season may have very little reason to pay attention to each other, but with everyone working toward the same goal, there is a similarity to the Marvel Cinematic Universe — pay attention, because it’s all going to connect.
College football is more like Star Wars, where what is going on in the Outer Rim may never be on the radars of the people on Coruscant. Plenty of SEC fans would look at whip-around coverage as a nuisance because they aren’t interested in what is going on in the Mountain West, no matter how exciting the game college football RedZone is cutting to may be.
We’ve Already Tried This
Does anyone remember ESPN Goal Line? It was the network’s college football answer to RedZone. It operated for close to ten years, and I am going to be honest — I don’t remember a thing about it. I can’t tell you who hosted it. I don’t think I ever watched it. I don’t even think I could tell you how to watch it.
The product had all of the same limitations a new version of college football RedZone would. That means it’s going to have very limited appeal.
I heard Joe Pompliano on The Town with Matthew Belloni suggest that maybe an all-SEC version of RedZone would solve this issue. ESPN owns every bit of SEC media presence. The conference has a vocal, dedicated fan base. Surely there’s an audience there.
It’s an interesting idea, but it ignores another lesson learned from Goal Line. Plenty of us watch a ton of college football, but there are a lot more people who just want to watch their team. It’s the Marvel vs. Star Wars thing. You don’t need to know what’s happening between NC State and Georgia Tech if all you care about is Oregon and its rivals.
Now that ESPN owns the RedZone brand, ideas to expand into other sports are natural, but they ignore the realities of why RedZone works. The NFL is a compact universe, and a product that provides whip-around coverage for a very small part of the year is a necessity for people trying to keep up with everything.
There is no other sport like that. College football fans don’t need to know everything. Other sports’ seasons are just too long. RedZone is a unique product that succeeds in a unique space.
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Demetri Ravanos is a former columnist and editor for Barrett Media. He is the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host of the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
