NFL RedZone (stylized as NFL RedZone from NFL Network) is an American sports television channel owned and operated by NFL Media, a joint venture of ESPN (via ABC Inc.) and the NFL. It is named after the term "red zone", the part of the football field between the 20-yard line and the goal line. As a "special" game-day exclusive, it broadcasts on Sundays during the NFL regular season from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific), or when the next-to-last afternoon window game ends. RedZone provides "whip around" simulcast coverage of all Sunday afternoon games airing in-progress on CBS and Fox.
RedZone is based out of the NFL Network studios and is hosted by Scott Hanson. The channel prides itself on showing "every touchdown from every game," and is closely linked to Fantasy Football, reporting superlatives and tracking various statistical accomplishments throughout the afternoon. RedZone monitors coverage of the traditional Sunday 1:00 p.m. "early" games and 4:05/4:25 p.m. "late" games.
RedZone is offered by numerous pay TV providers. DIRECTV aired a separate, similar program which was replaced by NFL RedZone in autumn 2023. This change was made when YouTube purchased the rights to the out-of-market NFL Sunday Ticket package.
In August 2025, ESPN announced RedZone would also became part of its new direct-to-consumer package.
RedZone is also broadcast live internationally. In the United Kingdom it is shown on the Sky Sports Mix television channel, and in Canada, Germany and Italy on DAZN, every Sunday and for the full seven hours. It is a direct simulcast of the American feed, with no commercial breaks, live coverage of both the early and late games and Hanson hosting. The major difference is that when there is only one Sunday afternoon game left being played, international viewers will be able to see it to its conclusion on RedZone, while domestic viewers will be switched immediately to the day's highlights to protect CBS/Fox and NFL Sunday Ticket still televising the game.
In August of 2025, ESPN purchased both the NFL Network as well as NFL RedZone in an equity deal, granting them with the ability to use the RedZone trademark and branding for other products. The deal was finalized in January of the following year. In September of 2026, RedZone at the U.S. Open served as the first usage of the RedZone trademark for their own products under this deal.
Format On game day, the RedZone channel signs-on at 12:45 p.m., US Eastern time. The countdown clock counts down the minutes and seconds until the start of the game coverage. As of December 6, 2020, the channel has featured 200 weeks of coverage since its debut.
Whip around coverage
At 1:00 p.m. (Eastern) the RedZone program begins, and immediately dives into live look-ins across the league. Host Scott Hanson gives a brief introduction of the day, highlighting key developing stories, as teams are typically already lining up for opening kickoff. Coverage of the opening kickoffs and a cursory look at early drives that are being established are the initial focus. Coverage is normally shown in full-screen, with one particular game as the primary focus for the moment.
The coverage is a direct simulcast of the CBS or Fox broadcast feed and commentary, with only occasional and usually brief voice-over comments by Hanson as needed. Coverage sometimes switches to split-screen, with two, three, four ("quad-box"), five ("Penta-box"), eight ("Octo-box"), or as many as ten ("Deca-box") game feeds being shown simultaneously. Producers in the studio monitor all game feeds in-progress, and decide which game to feature at any given moment.
Whenever a team enters the red zone, the coverage will switch to a full-screen live look-in of that game's television broadcast. It will attempt to cover a potential scoring result (touchdown or field goal). Meanwhile, the other games continue to be monitored, in case the need arises to switch to another feed at short notice. Field goal attempts from outside the red zone are sometimes shown, either live or in replay, if they pose significance to the outcome of the respective game.
As the games enter halftime, the coverage shifts over to games still finishing up the second quarter, even if there are no teams in the red zone. Some noncompetitive games that would otherwise not be looked at may take the attention for a few minutes, in order to fill the broadcast with as much live football coverage as possible. As soon as better games start returning for the third quarter, second half kickoffs typically take a priority.
If there are no teams in the red zone at a given moment, the focus may shift to a team on a strong offensive drive, or an otherwise important game of the day. Despite the channel's moniker, a team does not have to be inside the red zone for the focus and coverage to shift to that game. During the latter portion of the season, extra sidebar attention may be given to teams fighting for playoff berths, and the respective status thereof. The "whip around" coverage also is used to show quick replays of major plays such as turnovers, deep pass completions, very long runs from scrimmage, kickoff/punt return touchdowns, and other potentially interesting or important key plays. The "Game Rewind" feature is sometimes used to replay a significant play that resulted in a particular team entering the red zone.
Hanson rarely takes any kind of rest break during RedZone's seven hours on the air, and since the early years of the channel he has purposefully planned out his eating and drinking schedule during the regular season to avoid any need for a restroom break, having boasted on Twitter on December 10, 2017 (that year's Week 14) about his first restroom break in four years of NFL RedZone coverage.
It is not unusual for RedZone to switch between two or more games in quick succession, even between individual plays. Despite an effort made by producers to air all touchdowns live, some scoring plays are actually aired after a very brief time shift – ranging from as much as 30 to 60 seconds – sometimes because another scoring play is unfolding elsewhere. Time shifting can also occur if the scoring play happened unexpectedly, and/or initiated from outside the red zone. In those cases, the coverage is aired plausibly live with no mention that the coverage is slightly behind real time (though Hanson often tries to introduce the switch with some kind of segue, such as 'while we were watching that (play)...' to note it isn't live video).
When the 1 p.m. "early" games are in the fourth quarter, the focus of attention begins to narrow down to one-possession games (games within 8 points); Hanson will additionally introduce the fourth quarter coverage as "The Witching Hour; where wins become losses, and losses become wins". As the "early" games begin to conclude, RedZone seamlessly leads into coverage of the 4:05/4:25 p.m. "late" games. On afternoons in which early game action ends sooner than expected, extended statistical rundowns, highlights, and coverage of team press conferences may be used to fill the time before the late games start. Early games which go into overtime are usually prioritized, but never at the expense of missing touchdowns in other games that just started. When each game is concluded, a final score alert will flash on the bottom corner of the screen to inform viewers. This is especially important for games that have not had a live look-in for many minutes.
Periodically throughout the afternoon, producers keep track of and update viewers on the status of fantasy football statistics, and/or other statistical superlatives. With the legalization of sports betting in several states beginning in 2020, it also points out the over–under and certain betting statistics provided by league partner Caesars Sportsbook. The channel's priority, however, is to show every touchdown scored in every game throughout the afternoon. During the entire day, RedZone features a ticker at the bottom of the screen, updating scores and stats throughout the league. The ticker is situated in such a way that it is superimposed over the respective tickers of CBS and FOX.
On occasion, technical difficulties could prevent RedZone from showing certain touchdowns live. During Week 1 in the 2019 season, a technical issue with the CBS broadcast prevented a live look at a touchdown in the Kansas City Chiefs-Jacksonville Jaguars game; the touchdown was later shown using video from the scoreboard at TIAA Bank Field. Similar issues during Week 2 in 2020 prevented two touchdowns in the Buffalo Bills-Miami Dolphins game from being broadcast live; both touchdowns were later aired on replay (with one aired from the Dolphins' Instagram feed).
Limited-commercial format RedZone operates as a limited-commercial service; as such, whenever a game taking primary focus goes to a broadcaster-designated commercial break or other stoppage (such as timeout, instant replay challenge or an injury timeout), the feed will immediately switch to the next most-interesting game in-progress at the moment.
Commercial breaks are not completely avoided however, as sometimes the network coverage may take a break faster than expected, causing the first second or two of a commercial to air, before RedZone quickly cuts to another game, which usually includes Hanson jokingly playing off the brush with the accompanying commercial break with some kind of snark. Additionally, broadcast network promotions of their programming (most notably CBS and Fox promoting their Sunday night primetime lineups) will be shown as a natural part of the coverage.
If all games being held at a given moment are on a commercial break or in halftime, coverage will revert to the studio for brief commentary, replays, or statistical analysis by Hanson. In the "late" timeslot (when there are fewer games to choose from), highlight packages of selected "early" games may be shown during down times.
In recent years, the RedZone broadcast has had a presenting sponsor (such as Amazon Prime Video. and later DraftKings) along with other sponsored segments around statistics and superlatives, but had not broadcast its own commercial breaks. On December 15, 2024, RedZone began to quietly "test" a limited number of commercial breaks, airing in a split screen "double-box" alongside live gameplay. This elicited criticism from viewers, especially due to host Scott Hanson's still using his traditional sign-on promising "seven hours of commercial-free football". The NFL responded to the criticism, stating that this was a "test" and there as of yet were no long-term plans to add commercials to RedZone. The limited commercial breaks returned the following week, with Hanson notably amending his sign-on to no longer mention that the broadcast was commercial-free.
During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Hanson confirmed RedZone will incorporate commercial breaks starting with the 2025 NFL season, marking the end of its longstanding commercial‑free format, which further elicited criticism from viewers. Later clarification made clear that they would be limited in the first few weeks, with only four fifteen-second ads throughout each edition as part of a double-box graphic with game action remaining on the screen over the ad's audio, and not during actual red zone action. RedZone added additional advertisements as the season progressed. An analysis by Sports Business Journal of the November 30, 2025 broadcast indicated that RedZone ran a total of nine commercials in "double-box" during the program.
Touchdown montage and sign-off