The calls for college football to adopt a RedZone model for game streaming just gained another prominent voice: Tim Pernetti, commissioner of the American Conference.
According to Awful Announcing and Sports Business Journal’s Sports Media Podcast, Pernetti confirmed that the viewing habits of younger sports fans makes the RedZone model a more consumable option and present a unique opportunity for college football.
“I think RedZone would be terrific, because it just incites more engagement,” Pernetti said. “Because, you know, the reality is — and I have two 20-something sons that’ve both started working in sports, and they grew up on sports. They were around my career. They love sports, played sports, but the attention span is a little bit different for this generation. So, having the ability to sort of consume in bite size opportunities like NFL RedZone does.”
The RedZone-style broadcast of college football has always reached an impasse due to the fractured nature of the sport’s media rights. The Big Ten and Big 12 are held by a combination of Fox Sports, CBS and NBC. The SEC and ACC are owned by ESPN, and other conferences like the American Conference or teams without a conference add an additional layer of complexity. All these competitors would be required to collaborate if a comprehensive RedZone were to be achieved for college football.
The platform could also offer expanded viewership for the teams that Pernetti oversees, including North Texas, Florida Atlantic and Memphis, which often don’t garner prime time spots from major broadcasters.
“In college, the challenge with this — it’s much like commissioners coming together to agree on anything — is you need to bring all the media networks together to agree that there’s a product that they can create to service fandom. And I would also argue that there’s money to be made for everyone by doing something like this. But that will be a pretty difficult hill to climb,” said Pernetti. “I think it would be a tremendous product. I think it would modernize how college football is consumed. And I also think it would bring more casual fans to the table, which we really need.”
