When DirecTV’s NFL RedZone debuted in 2005, it wasn’t clear at the time, but it was a seminal moment in sports television in the United States.
The whip-around style NFL show that cut between Sunday afternoon games, taking viewers to the best moments from each, was a groundbreaking format for the American viewer. But funnily enough, NFL RedZone’s origins came from overseas, when, in 2001, a young Eric Shanks was sent to Italy by Fox, where he is now CEO of Fox Sports, to acquire Serie A rights for a new sports network called Sky Italia.
The story, as written by Chris Smith in Sports Business Journal, involved Shanks touring an Italian company that Fox had acquired, Telepiu, where he found “a half-dozen analysts sitting around folding tables and watching the games on TV, with an MC figuratively passing the mic.”
“One guy would raise his hand, and the [host] would look across the room, and he’d be like, ‘OK, now we’re going over to Giovanni in Palermo.’ And then Giovanni would start talking. Then another guy would raise his hand. ‘OK, now we’re going over to Mario, he’s in Milano,’” Shanks told Sports Business Journal. “I’m like, ‘What the f— is going on?’ And then, ‘Oh! That’s the live look-in.’”
It didn’t take long for Shanks to utilize this concept he had just discovered. He joined DirecTV in 2003 while the pay-TV distributor was in negotiations with the NFL for the Sunday Ticket package, and negotiated a clause in the contract that gave DirecTV rights to live look-ins during NFL games. Two years later, NFL RedZone was born. Andrew Siciliano would host, and the show became an overnight sensation.
The NFL would soon replicate the concept for itself, tapping Scott Hanson to host its own RedZone program that competed with DirecTV’s. In 2023, when YouTube acquired rights for Sunday Ticket, it spelled the end of DirecTV’s version of RedZone.
Now, the idea of an NFL Sunday without a whip-around-style show is a foreign concept to many football fans. Particularly with the growing interest in fantasy football and sports betting, RedZone has become an invaluable program for the NFL.
Who knows how long it would’ve taken to create this type of show if it weren’t for Shanks witnessing its bones in Italy, or whether there would even be a RedZone at all. But football fans are certainly thankful he did, and their Sundays have forever changed because of it.
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