Roger Goodell Just Hinted at College Football Redzone Produced by ESPN

On Tuesday, ESPN acquired NFL Network for 10% of the company.

It was a move that was met with skepticism and resistance — as ESPN will also acquire the linear NFL RedZone channel and NFL Fantasy. Not to mention, the NFL owning part of ESPN brings its own set of ethical challenges.

But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell might’ve buried some of the mixed emotions that football fans have had over this acquisition with three golden words that fans have dreamed of for decades.

College. Football. RedZone.

“ESPN purchased the RedZone name and they will be able to use that for other sports — college football and other things,” Goodell said. “That’s something that they now own and they have the ability to do that.”

Goodell noted that NFL RedZone will remain the same, being produced in the same building.

“I don’t think fans will see any difference to that.”

College Football RedZone would be pretty difficult to pull off. There are so many games going on at once any given Saturday. Managing 30 different college football games in a RedZone-caliber format seems nearly impossible, but the commissioner of the NFL is telling you that the worldwide leader in sports has that sort of capability.

The idea of 12 hours of commercial-free college football? Anybody would sign up for this.

Many fans feared that ESPN would try to “revamp” RedZone, forcing more of their recycled personalities like Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith onto the legendary show. According to Goodell, the program will remain unchanged, but he’s not the final say on that.

NFL RedZone is the perfect product. There’s no reason to tamper with it. But we know how these things typically go. You’d have to wonder, though — would changes be accepted by fans if it meant making RedZone: College Football a reality?

Despite the merger, the NFL will retain ownership of other properties including NFL Films, NFL+, NFL.com and the NFL Podcast Network. They will continue producing and distributing the digital version of RedZone independently. But the linear, traditional TV version is now owned by ESPN.

NFL RedZone became tremendously popular because of the rise of fantasy sports. You could easily monitor all of your players on one channel. Fantasy college football is nowhere near as popular, but the prospect of College Football RedZone would still intrigue many fans of the sport.