If you're an NFL fan and also one of Time Warner Cable's 14 million customers nationwide, you're getting squeezed out of the greatest revolution in how we consume sports since the advent of the Internet, rivaled only by the rise of high−definition television.
Time Warner and the NFL Network have been at a standstill since the network launched NFL RedZone two years ago. Not having access to RedZone isn't as bad as, say, missing at least the first two weeks of the NBA season, but having experienced its pleasures for the few weeks of this NFL season, I can never go back. And neither should you. It is the most purely entertaining way to watch sports in the world. This is probably what being on crack feels like, except it's cheaper and has fewer side effects, and it's football!
Take Week 2, for example. I'm sitting on a friend's couch — they've got a big−screen television and snacks — and watching Ryan Fitzpatrick, who oh my gosh by the way went to Harvard, march his Buffalo Bills down the field in the final two minutes against the Oakland Raiders. CBS host James Brown has excitedly sent us here for Bonus Coverage. It's 4:09 p.m., there's around 30 seconds left in the game, Fitzpatrick goes back to pass inside the Raiders's red zone and ... wait. CBS goes to commercials. The network is contractually obligated to switch to the Pats−Chargers game, which starts at 4:15.
Plates of grilled cheese are overturned in anguish. You can hear the screams of anger spill out from all the other houses on Sunset Road in which people watching football have been similarly trolled. But though my friends are upset, they ultimately slouch back into their seats, resigned to their fate.
With NFL RedZone, there's none of this nonsense. RedZone shows the consumer every single scoring play from every game every Sunday, including every last−minute drive. If by cosmic coincidence two games are in a game−culminatingtwo−minute drill, the channel goes to a split−screen or frantically switches back and forth.
This is the only channel, besides maybe the Tennis Channel during the major tennis tournaments, I've experienced that has purely the fans' interests in mind. Or at least the type of fan that cares about his fantasy team almost as much or potentially more than his home team, which — sorry, sports fans — is millions of people, including both those with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and those without ADD. You don't need to have ADD to appreciate touchdown after touchdown after touchdown.
RedZone's even better than DirectTV's Sunday Ticket, which gives you access to every game, because RedZone has an editor who does all the switching−around work for you. With ten or so games going on at once, RedZone consumers get to sit back and watch the mayhem ensue. Plus, on RedZone, there are none of the mind−numbing commercials that make NFL broadcasts so tedious.
There is a hangover effect to this football entertainment binge, though, besides the headache that accompanies staring at a screen for six hours straight. Any true fan of a team will not be satisfied with only seeing his team's scoring plays, so RedZone is not a viable replacement to full−game NFL coverage.
Instead it's a gorgeous supplement that eliminates annoying commercials and crappy network TV contracts and gives an already information−saturated fan base what we want: highlight after highlight, in real time.
With this kind of heavenly experience available with one click of the remote, I might never shell out the dollars to sit in a cold NFL stadium and watch just one game ever again.
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Ben Kochman is a junior majoring in English. He can be reached at bkoch.tufts@gmail.com or on Twitter @benkochman.
