After NFL RedZone host Scott Hanson went on The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday and officially confirmed commercials are returning full-time to RedZone this season, the sports public on social media erupted in complaints, gripes, and barbs at Disney and ESPN, which last month struck an equity deal with the league.

Here’s what’s actually happening.

RedZone began quietly testing ads last December in a two-box style, where ads appeared while NFL action remained on-screen. The NFL says that is how the ads this season will run: exactly as they did during that test. 

There will be four 15-second ads in the seven-hour edition of RedZone in Week 1, a source tells FOS. That could change later in the season.

There will not be full ad breaks, where the football action disappears from the screen.

“It’s an incredibly small ad load,” an NFL spokesperson told Front Office Sports.

While ads are playing, viewers will hear the audio of the ads, but the other box will show NFL RedZone. 

“This move has been contemplated and tested for over a year now, and is completely unrelated to the recent news regarding ESPN and the NFL,” the league told FOS. 

McAfee did say, “I don’t think anybody is upset about the commercials. It’s an easy thing to tweet about and post about, but I don’t think anybody is turning it off because of commercials, and the NFL knows that.” The comment was roundly mocked on X/Twitter.

Sports fans are also confused about ESPN’s involvement in the ads. Disney does not yet own NFL Network since the extensive deal between Disney and the NFL has not closed—but even once the deal is done, Disney will not own RedZone. It will merely have licensing and distribution rights. RedZone will remain owned and operated by the NFL.

RedZone’s popularity and Hanson’s skill in hosting it led NBC’s Peacock to create a Gold Zone whip-around show hosted by Hanson at the 2024 Paris Olympics. FOS broke the news that Hanson will return to Peacock to host a similar presentation for the 2026 Winter Olympics. 

He’s not leaving RedZone anytime soon, either; FOS also broke the news of his long-term contract extension this May.

The NFL does not release ratings numbers for RedZone, but it is available in more than 50 million homes via various TV and streaming providers. The channel requires an extra fee, typically $10 per month, or comes as part of a wider premium sports tier package.

ESPN platforms had their most-watched college football Week 1 on record, as big non-conference season openers delivered huge TV ratings.

Three games drew more than 10 million viewers each on ABC: 

• Miami 27, Notre Dame 24: 10.8 million
• Florida State 31, Alabama 17: 10.7 million
• LSU 17, Clemson 10: 10.4 million

ABC’s other game, Tennessee’s 45–26 win over Syracuse, averaged 2.6 million viewers. Overall, the network’s four college football games on Saturday and Sunday averaged 8.6 million viewers, which marks its most-watched opening weekend.

Cumulatively, games across ABC and ESPN networks averaged 4 million viewers, which is also the best college football Week 1 for the Disney-owned platforms. Bill Belichick’s debut outing as North Carolina’s head coach was the fourth-most-watched game on an ESPN platform, drawing more than 6 million viewers.

The strong showing for games on ABC and ESPN comes alongside Fox’s 16.62 million viewers for Ohio State’s 14–7 win over Arch Manning and Texas, the most-watched college football Week 1 game on any channel.

Prime Impact

Colorado had its least-watched season opener since Deion Sanders became head coach ahead of the 2023 season.

ESPN drew 3.7 million viewers for Georgia Tech’s 27–20 victory over the Buffaloes on Friday night. Last year, Colorado–North Dakota State averaged 4.8 million viewers on a Thursday night. In 2023, Fox drew 7.26 million viewers in its Big Noon Saturday game window for Sanders’s first game at Colorado, in which Coach Prime’s squad upset TCU 45–42.

As the NBA looks to inject new energy into its long-struggling All-Star Game, the league and National Basketball Players Association are closing in on a new competition format for the midseason showcase.

The 2026 NBA All-Star Game at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles will likely feature a three-team tournament that will include two squads from the U.S. of eight players each and another of the same size made up of international players, according to industry sources and multiple reports. The format roughly coincides with the current nationality split among NBA players. 

The three-team, round-robin format was presented to the league’s competition committee Wednesday, with a strong initial response. Changes from last season have been all but assured after the 2025 event, featuring four teams drafted by the Inside the NBA talent, produced a 13% audience drop to its second-worst level. Several players openly lambasted the format, with the Warriors’ Draymond Green giving it a “zero” out of 10. 

“It was a miss,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in April of the 2025 game. “We’re not there in terms of creating an All-Star experience that we can be proud of and that our players can be proud of.”

Amid several prior formats, though, the NBA All-Star Game has long suffered from a relative lack of competitive intensity. In particular, the 2024 game featured a final score of 211–186, setting several offensive records in the process and accelerating the NBA’s urgency to make bigger changes.

The Feb. 15 game will be aired on NBC, part of a blockbuster February 2026 for the network, which produced an advertising sellout for Super Bowl LX a week earlier. The presence of the 2026 Winter Olympics during that month, also shown on NBC, is likely influencing the league’s interest in including a global element to the upcoming All-Star Game.

“It presents an enormous opportunity for us to do something with an international competition instead of the traditional All-Star formats that we’ve used,” Silver said in the spring. 

Also an influence is the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off from February, which similarly featured an international competition at its core and was a massive hit for that league.