'NFL RedZone' Reportedly Uncertain About Ads Going Forward

NFL fans have been in a tizzy the last week due to the looming possibility that the audience will never again enjoy seven hours of commercial-free football.

Week 15 of the NFL season brought an "experiment" from NFL Network in which NFL RedZone featured a double box with an advertisement for a short segment of the weekly show— a direct conflict with host Scott Hanson's catchphrase promising no commercials for the afternoon. This threw regular viewers into an uproar. Hanson ended up apologizing and, in Week 16, changed his intro to "seven hours of RedZone football."

While that indicated to some that commercials were going to be part of the program going forward, Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports reported on Monday that NFL Network is actually "undecided" on whether to include ads on NFL RedZone going forward.

"NFL Network remains 'undecided' on whether it will employ RedZone ads in the future, said a source with knowledge of the league’s strategy," McCarthy wrote. "That means the league could test the double-box ads again during Weeks 17 and 18. Or wait until the 2025 regular season, then bring them in more widely."

While the endgame of including commercials should have perhaps felt inevitable given the still-growing popularity of RedZone and the nature of our capitlistic society, it sure has been a weird series of decisions from the NFL. Testing ads on RedZone is one thing, but to do it in the middle of the season with no warning and apparently no plan to continue doing so is a little strange. What was the goal?

Regardless, the future of NFL RedZone as far as ads are concerned is not set in stone.