ESPN’s Jimmy Pitaro says network would ‘love’ to talk college football RedZone with Fox

Jimmy Pitaro was asked if ESPN would sit down with Fox Sports and talk about college football RedZone, and his answer was an unequivocal yes.

“We would love to have those conversations,” ESPN’s president told Front Office Sports at their Tuned In event on Tuesday. “If Eric’s interested, if the folks at NBC are interested, if the folks at CBS are interested, we would love to have those conversations.”

Eric Shanks runs Fox Sports, and Fox owns Big Ten rights exclusively. Without Big Ten games, any college football RedZone becomes SEC RedZone with some ACC content mixed in, which isn’t really RedZone at all.

ESPN’s recent equity deal with the NFL hands them ownership of the RedZone brand, along with distribution rights to the existing channel. That distinction matters because it gives ESPN the legal framework to create RedZone programming beyond professional football.

“We are acquiring the RedZone brand, so we would have that opportunity,” Pitaro explained. “We’ve started to think about how we could potentially expand it to other leagues, but also other sports in general. College football is something that we started to look at.”

Scott Hanson has been campaigning for this job across multiple media appearances recently, telling anyone who’ll listen that he’d love to host college football RedZone. The appeal makes sense considering he already watches college games all Saturday anyway, setting up multiple monitors in his home to track action across conferences while preparing for NFL RedZone.

The obstacles are apparent to anyone who understands college football television rights. Games don’t kick off at synchronized times like NFL games do. ESPN doesn’t own every game worth showing. Most importantly, Fox isn’t naturally inclined to hand over Big Ten highlights to help ESPN build appointment television on Saturdays.

“It’s a bit more complicated for obvious reasons than on the professional football side, but it’s definitely something that we’re considering,” Pitaro acknowledged.

ESPN attempted something similar with Goal Line in the 2010s before shutting it down in 2020. The difference now is that RedZone has evolved into a cultural force that fundamentally changed how people consume NFL Sundays. A college version could potentially do the same thing for Saturdays, but only if executed properly.

Pitaro understands the RedZone brand carries specific expectations that can’t be compromised for the sake of launching something quickly.

“Whatever we do has to be a brand deposit, not a brand withdrawal,” he said.

The timeline depends entirely on regulatory approval of the NFL deal, which must close before ESPN can officially use the RedZone brand for anything beyond the existing NFL programming. But Pitaro’s openness to cross-network collaboration suggests ESPN recognizes that college football RedZone done right requires participation from competitors who usually protect their inventory.

The conversations haven’t happened yet because they legally can’t happen yet, but Pitaro just confirmed ESPN’s willingness to have them once the framework exists.