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ESPN confirms it is exploring RedZone expansion into college football, other sports

by: Alex Byington5 hours ago_AlexByington
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Jan 8, 2024; Houston, TX, USA; A detail view of an ESPN camera before the 2024 College Football Playoff national championship game between the Michigan Wolverines and the Washington Huskies at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

ESPN is in the process of acquiring the NFL Network and its popular RedZone brand in a deal that would give the NFL a 10-percent equity into the sports television network. And while the deal has yet to be finalized, ESPN has already started looking toward how it could expand the “NFL RedZone” platform beyond just the NFL.

During a recent appearance at Front Office Sports‘ 2025 Tuned In sports media summit in New York City, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro told FOS that the network is exploring new ways to utilize RedZone — which broadcasts scoring plays and most redzone opportunties across all NFL games each week — in other sports, including college football.

“As I mentioned, we are acquiring the RedZone brand, so we would have that opportunity. And look, we’ve started to think about how we could potentially expand it to other leagues but also other sports in general. (And) college football is something that we started to look at,” Pitaro said. “It’s a bit more complicated for obvious reasons than on the professional football side, but it’s definitely something that we’re considering, as well as other sports. … (But) none of this can happen until the deal closes, because that acquisition of the RedZone brand was in connection with the 10-percent equity stake that the (NFL) will be taking.”

As Pitaro mentioned, there are still some serious roadblocks to ESPN utilizing a true RedZone format to cover every major college football game week-in and week-out. While the NFL’s television rights deals are quite consolidated, college football’s media rights are not, with each Power conference having their own media rights deal with individual networks.

According to an Aug. 14 report from FOS, FOX Sports could be a significant hurdle in the race to produce a collegiate RedZone package. FOX carries the Big Noon game of the week in the Big Ten, as well as other conference offerings for both the Big Ten and Big 12.

And FOS reports that FOX is unlikely to license its Big Ten or Big 12 games to ESPN for fear of cannibalizing its own viewership. Per FOS: “Fox would require significant ownership in the venture to have any willingness to participate.”

ESPN does have an agreement to produce the Big 12’s college football championship game, as well as the opportunity to air several other select conference games, while FOX and FS1 get access to televise 26 Big 12 regular-season games each season through 2030-31.

In 2022, the Big Ten signed an $8 million deal to air its college football games on FOX/FS1, CBS, NBC and the Big Ten Network, the latter of which FOX owns a 60-percent state in.

Meanwhile, ESPN and its parent company Disney secured the rights to televise SEC games through 2034-35 back in 2020, as part of a $3 billion deal, and upped the ante significantly in 2024 after the league expanded to add Texas and Oklahoma.

— On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this report.