Scott Hanson Changed How We Watch Football, So Peacock Hired Him to Change How We Watch the Olympics
It’s one thing for a sports broadcast to do its own whip-around show. The galaxy brain idea Peacock and NBC had when it came to this year’s Olympics coverage was, what if we got THE guy known for THE whip-around sports show: “NFL RedZone” host Scott Hanson.
That’s just what they did, tapping Hanson to be their primetime host for “Gold Zone,” established during previous Olympic Games as an answer to “RedZone” that gives viewers an uninterrupted, constant stream of Olympics coverage. And now, it’s from the guy everyone knows delivers “7 hours of commercial-free football” every Sunday. Maybe if you’re good, you’ll see an Olympic-themed “Octobox” or even a “Decabox!”
More from IndieWire
“They immediately know, ‘Gold Zone,’ it’s ‘RedZone’ for the Olympics. There’s an expectation there,” Hanson told IndieWire in an interview over Zoom. “Maybe some new Olympic viewers find ‘Gold Zone’ the way that they want to consume the Olympics. And we’re bringing it to you live.”
“NFL RedZone” has been a staple for diehard football fans and fantasy sports players since 2009, and ever since then, Hanson has been a fan-favorite sports personality, if not one of the most consistent presences in sports for the past 14 (soon to be 15) years. “RedZone” pioneered the whip-around show, in which the broadcast shows you every touchdown and rapidly cuts between live moments of every game in real-time, sometimes with split-screen views of multiple crucial moments happening simultaneously and cutting the audio in and out between each game at will.
Numerous copycats have followed — “Gold Zone” has existed for several Olympics, assuming a much greater prominence on Peacock for the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and 2022 Winter Games in Beijing — even for football, as well. But none have become as popular as “RedZone,” specifically because they don’t have Hanson.
For years, “RedZone” was only available as an add-on to NFL Network through your cable or satellite provider, complete with its own channel that showed nothing but “RedZone” on Sundays, so it was still a niche show for diehards. That changed last year when YouTube bought NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL made “RedZone” available as a standalone streaming add-on, making Hanson even more of a star.
In speaking with Hanson, he has the same baritone crispness and energy in his voice as he does on Sundays as he’s pulling up the “Octobox” featuring eight games kicking off at once, or declaring the “Witching Hour,” the time “when wins become losses and losses become wins.” Hanson has an in-depth knowledge of the game and every player and storyline from around the league, with an ability to excitedly jump between highlights in a snap and make sure you see every touchdown and big play.
Hanson’s relentless, 7-hour marathon sessions of being on-air (without bathroom breaks!) is truly unmatched in sports television, and over time it’s changed the way many people watch the game. With its 39 different sports and countless heats all happening at once in funky time zones, the Olympics makes it extremely difficult to find exactly the event you’re looking for, let alone find the highlights of the events you may just be curious about. Peacock then was smart to make Hanson the maestro for it all in the hopes of getting more people to care about their golden goose.
“I hope to deliver those same dopamine hits that we give to our ‘RedZone’ audience to the ‘Gold Zone’ audience,” Hanson said. “If I’m going from from gymnastics to swimming, and doing whip-around coverage at ‘Gold Zone,’ it’s the same voice that you hear every NFL Sunday on ‘RedZone.’ Hopefully it meshes well with with this particular Olympic audience.”
The trouble is, Hanson is not an expert when it comes to the majority of Olympic events. When we connected with him, he was in the midst of pouring through a 145-page long attachment for the rules of handball. He still needed time to brush up on fencing, water polo, and breaking, better known as break dancing, which is a new Olympic sport this year. Oh, and he’ll also be memorizing 200+ country codes as well. Good luck with that.
“I need to know, if BLS is playing CRO in badminton, that’s Belarus versus Croatia,” Hanson said. “Even as I say it out loud, I’m kind of shaking my head here going, how many days left do we have to learn all this stuff? Because it’s right around the corner, and I hope the audience comes along for the ride and gives us grace in the process.”
The good news is that Hanson is just one of four hosts splitting the duties when “Gold Zone” is on air between 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. So while Hanson won’t be doing the marathon sessions daily, he’ll still be the main face during the primetime 2-5 p.m. window.
But that’s little reprieve, as Hanson says the task so far has been “daunting” and by far the “greatest research and prep challenge of my career,” all to be as knowledgeable as he can when he goes live.
“There must have been some carnival act in my family tree, like I have some type of a desire to be on a high wire on live TV and challenge myself in multitasking in new and exciting ways,” Hanson said. “The Olympics is all of that, and then some.”
“Gold Zone” will be an “organic” production, with Hanson making value-based decisions in real time about the best stuff you need to see. So if the U.S. Women’s Soccer team is blowing out the opponents by four goals, he’ll shift his focus to another sport with a tight elimination event or a medal performance.
That said, he’ll also be responsible for orchestrating viewers who want to stick with the event they’ve been watching rather than pivot to a new one. Peacock is rolling out some impressive new tech in which as Hanson is speaking, viewers will be notified with on-screen pop-ups that allow them to cut away to a different sport if they prefer to stay where they are. Hanson’s job will be to point folks in the right direction.
“It’s okay if the audience gets a little peek behind the curtain at the Wizard of Oz and it looks a little bit rough around the edges at times, because the audience will know that this is immediate, it is live, and that’s going to be part of the fun of it as well,” he said. “I will absolutely be addressing the audience by telling them, ‘Hey, we got six things going on right here. We’re going to pick the best two or three right now, and we’ll get you back to this competition when we can, but I’ve got to show you what’s happening in fencing at this moment.'”
Peacock intends to make all 5,000+ hours of Olympic events available on-demand, a first for a streamer. It’s the dream NBCUniversal had in mind for the 2020 Summer games, intending to launch Peacock as the games were beginning, only for the pandemic to derail everything. Four years later, that dream can hopefully be realized and bring some subscribers along with it.
“Gold Zone” debuts on Saturday, July 27 on Peacock and continues for the duration of the Olympic Games.
Best of IndieWire
Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See
'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie
The 55 Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
