Week 1 in the NFL is finally here! The beer is cold, the wings are sauced, and the excuses to get out of weddings have already been rehearsed. Football is back.
If you’re over 35, you probably remember how the day used to start. You flipped on the TV at nine in the morning—hey, I’m from the West Coast—and the pregame shows felt like your marching band to the main event. Chris Berman was booming nicknames, Terry Bradshaw was rambling, James Brown was steady at the desk. By kickoff, you felt like you’d already been through something. Features, interviews, predictions, injuries—you needed a pregame show to catch up and be prepared for the slate of games ahead.
Fast-forward to 2025, and the NFL Sunday routine has changed completely. Pregame shows are still there—FOX’s NFL Sunday, ESPN’s Countdown, CBS’s NFL Today—but let’s be honest, they’re background noise now. You might leave them on while making coffee or preparing that first Bloody Mary of the day, but they are not setting the table the way they once did.
The NFL Fan Has Changed
The ratings prove it.
FOX NFL Sunday still leads the genre, averaging 4.4 million viewers last season. Sounds impressive until you remember the game that follows pulls in 20 to 26 million. Four out of five fans don’t bother with the warm-up.
ESPN’s Countdown peaked at 1.3 million in 2023, then slipped to around 1.1 million in 2024. NFL Network’s GameDay Morning hovers around 400,000 to 500,000.
CBS doesn’t even bother reporting pregame ratings anymore. Brent Musburger, Irv Cross, Jimmy The Greek, and Phyllis George started the pregame craze in the 1970s on The NFL Today.
Meanwhile, streaming is devouring everything in its cable-chomping path. Nielsen reported this spring that streaming now accounts for nearly 45 percent of all TV usage in the U.S., passing cable and broadcast combined for the first time ever. In 2019, it was under 25 percent.
That’s not a shift; that’s a jailbreak.
Amazon’s Thursday Night Football averaged 13.2 million viewers last season, up 11 percent from the year before. NBC’s Sunday Night Football delivered an average digital audience of 2.2 million, a 38% jump. Peacock’s exclusive Wild Card game in January 2024 drew 21.5 million on the app and nearly 23 million overall. And Netflix’s Christmas debut? 24 million people found it, no problem.
Are you one of those dwindling NFL viewers still screaming at the TV because you can’t find the game the old-fashioned way? Roger Goodell has too many dollars stuffed in his ears to hear you.
The Modern Way To Watch Football
So what does a real NFL Sunday look like now?
It doesn’t start with the desk—it starts the moment RedZone goes live. Scott Hanson is pulling the strings like a football wizard, flipping from touchdowns to fumbles to missed field goals with the kind of chaos that makes the old studio chatter feel like a black-and-white newsreel.
This year, though, even RedZone isn’t immune. ESPN, which now runs the channel, is adding commercials, as Hanson admitted on The Pat McAfee Show earlier this week. It’s a reminder that in 2025, nothing stays pure forever—not even seven hours of uninterrupted football mayhem.
Bills still have to be paid; you think Micah Parsons’ new contract is going to pay itself?
From there, the day rolls along. By the late window, you’re locked into the national game of the week, but your phone won’t stop buzzing with highlights of what you’re missing. By nightfall, you’re firing up Peacock, the new ESPN or FOX streaming services, or Amazon, with fantasy scores and live bets riding shotgun on the second screen.
Pregame shows? Maybe you’ll see a clip on TikTok if Gronk goes viral or Bradshaw has a senior moment.
And the cultural shift is even bigger. If you want analysis, you don’t wait for Howie Long—who retired from the NFL 32 years ago—to explain who wants it more. You hit TikTok for a 60-second film breakdown, scroll X for a gambling angle, or watch Pat McAfee yell with his buddies on YouTube.
Podcasts like Bussin’ With The Boys are where NFL fans flip for analysis from players who recently played the game or are still playing. That content is instant, portable, and interactive.
Networks Need Programming
The network shows are scheduled, slow, and built on a formula that hasn’t really changed since Musburger first belted out “You are looking live” on The NFL Today in 1977.
The networks, of course, won’t admit this. FOX isn’t pushing Bradshaw out the door. ESPN needs Countdown to fill time before kickoff. CBS likes the illusion of a full-day broadcast. And as long as the ad dollars trickle in, the shows will limp along. But everyone knows where the real juice is.
That’s the divide heading into Week 1: Sundays used to be built around the pregame. Now they’re built around the kickoff. Fans are telling us exactly what they care about: the games, the highlights, the streams, the fantasy updates. Because the NFL is a soap opera each week and fans are bombarded with information on their devices from all angles all the time, they don’t need Sundays to catch up—they just want the games and the consistent personalities each day to interpret the ever-spinning football news cycle.
The NFL can keep pretending the warm-up still matters, but the audience has already moved on.
So this Sunday, you’ll probably skip the desk. You’ll start with Hanson on RedZone, flip to the national game in the afternoon, scroll your phone all day, hit NBC at night, and go late-night with whatever streamer the league has sold a slice of your soul to. Pregame shows had a hell of a run, but in 2025 they’re just stale chips and store-bought salsa sitting on the table.
The meal doesn’t really start until the games do—and Week 1 is finally here. Dig in.
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With decades of experience behind the mic, John Lund is more than a sports commentator and weekly columnist for Barrett Media—he’s a storyteller, humorist, and true fan. He’s hosted shows in mid sized markets like Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City to larger cities like San Francisco, Detroit and Dallas. John has even hosted nationally on ESPN Radio. Known for his sharp wit and deep sports knowledge, John welcomes your feedback. Reach him on X @JohnLundRadio or by email at John@JohnLundRadio.com.
Great article John! It’s just totally spot on. I’m in my 60s and I recall the days of getting up Sunday morning and tuning into the pregame shows just to see what some of the people had to say. But no more. I get up to watch the games and I switch over to red zone ever so often to see if I missed anything. Otherwise, I use my fantasy app to check on my fantasy scores. But I am a Niner fan so I usually watch that whole game.
If Redzone is now running commercials, why am I still charged for it? It should be free. I’m paying for it by watching the advertisers’ commercials!
I know eh? They are double dipping and its frustrating!