Earlier this week, the NFL and ESPN made a massive deal as the NFL sold of NFL Network and other media assets including NFL RedZone to ESPN. When the deal was announced everyone got caught up on the impact it will have on ESPN's coverage of the NFL given that the league now owns 10% of the media brand. The factor everyone was missing was what this deal could mean for every other sport from College Football to the MLB to the NBA and more.
As College Football fans have to divide their attention each Saturday across several different games in several different time windows, everyone has called for College Football to get it's own version of the NFL RedZone. The issue is that the NFL owned the RedZone name but, ESPN now owns the name and idea and can quickly adapt it across every sport.
Roger Goodell appeared on ESPN's SportsCenter where he shared news that will be music to every fans ears.
"ESPN purchased the RedZone name, and they will be able to utilize that for other sports, college football and other things, and I think that could be an exciting thing for our fans also to see a RedZone, maybe in college football or other sports, that’s something that they now own and have the ability to do that."Roger Goodell
“When we see the innovation that ESPN has & how we’ve grown together over the years, this is really exciting for our fans.”
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) August 6, 2025
Wednesday, @NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell joined @SportsCenter to talk about the league’s 4 new agreements w/ESPN
Full interview: https://t.co/arkWcEkeKF pic.twitter.com/9aqzTTbMXL
If ESPN was able to launch it's own version of NFL RedZone it would be a gamechanger for College Football fans. Currently, College Football fans need multiple screens or a streaming service just to keep up with all of the action in their own conference let alone Nationally.
The issue with the plan to bring RedZone to College Football is getting all of the networks on board. ESPN has rights to games which it can use but, they'd need buy-in from CBS and NBC along with any other media outlet in order to put the games all in one place. The NFL was able to do so with the NFL Network as it was their games but, ESPN could have an issue selling its rivals on allowing them to use the games.