Being an NFL fan can sometimes seem like an exercise in multitasking. Following your favorite team is just one item on the to-do list. Thanks to fantasy football, it’s more and more common to keep tabs on the league at large.
And if you’re one of those fans who wants to see everything on Sunday, you’re probably well acquainted with Scott Hanson. The NFL Network’s Red Zone host presides over a seven-hour stretch of (previously commercial free) football, whisking viewers around the country to highlight the biggest moments. That role has also made the anchor something of a fan favorite. Red Zone‘s unique product and Hanson’s infectious enthusiasm seem to transcend rooting interested and get everyone excited for some football.
So, ahead of the second Sunday of the NFL season, Newsweek sat down with Hanson to talk about his famous enthusiasm, the year ahead and more.
Newsweek: So the logical place to start has to be Week 1, right? I’m sure we could spend our entire time just talking about those games. But, what was your overall takeaway from this past week/weekend?
Scott Hanson: Week 1 of the NFL season was just an underscore of two things that we already kind of know. But it just emphasized 1) How much we missed football in our lives, how much we missed rocking and rolling on an NFL Sunday and 2) Why, the NFL is king of American sports.
You talk about multiple games that came down to the final seconds, drama, high-scoring games. Star players making massive plays in the critical moments. It’s like it’s fresh to us every year, and yet we know that it’s going to deliver that. And when it does, we still have that joy and surprise.
And at the beginning of the year, that gratitude that, “Wow we get 17 more Sundays of moments like that.”
NW: Right, and then I know, especially for this season, Lowe’s has a campaign about earning your Sunday doing those things you need to do during the week to really be squared away when the big day rolls around.
So can you tell me a bit more about that? And then, relatedly, what does your week look like to actually get you ready for a Sunday?
SH: Well, first, I would say, Lowe’s has a new campaign this year called “Earn Your Sunday.” And the concept is this: We all have stuff that we need to do around the house, in and around the house. Home improvement projects, right, whether in the yard or inside, whatever, we all got them. Everyone knows Lowe’s is the place to go for your home. Improvement needs one-stop shopping. You go in there, whatever you need in here.
So the concept for earn your Sunday is this: We all got projects. Let’s get them done during the week, or on a Friday, or on Saturday. So that you can earn your Sunday and hit the couch and watch seven hours of NFL football guilt free. Because all the projects, all the checklists, are all done….And there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of knowing. “Oh, man, that leaky faucet, that Drywall situation, my lawn out front. I got it done. I can hit the couch and not worry about it. I’m guilt free about it.” So that is, earn your Sunday through Lowe’s.
And Lowe’s has partnered with some of the biggest names in the NFL to get that messaging out there. Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Justin Jefferson, Dak Prescott and others are going to be a part of the “Earn Your Sunday” campaign for Lowe’s this year. I think fans will have a fun time. Kind of seeing how the season goes in that regard.
NW: And your NFL Sundays? What’s the week like?
SH: So my Sunday, as you well know, is not spent on the couch, but my Sunday is spent enjoying NFL football just in a different way than the fans do.
The way I do it is I got to do all my chores, all of my work, and for me that’s studying. I go through hundreds of pages of notes to get me ready for any individual NFL Sunday. Facts, stats, storylines, injury updates.
Saturating my mind with as much as I possibly can know, so that when we get to an NFL kickoff on Sunday and Red Zone begins, I’m like, Ok, “Yeah, this player just did this. Let me tell you the backstory of this guy. Let me tell you why it’s interesting.” Or, “Oh, Matthew Stafford’s got 161 yards passing. Well, 1 more yard, and he gets to 60,000 in his career.”
Everything that prepares me to do my job on Sunday. I’m working to get it done during Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, right up till kickoff time. So hopefully I’ve earned my Sunday the way Lowe’s wants the fans out there to earn theirs in their home.
NW: And then, like you said, with the idea of earning your Sunday, there are some big players involved in that. I think it all comes down to just excitement about the NFL and how special it is. I’m sure that’s something you can understand very well, right?
SH: I don’t care what someone’s worldview, philosophy, religion or anything else is. My guess is, we all agree that we only have so many heartbeats in our chest, on this Earth. How are you gonna spend them? What are you gonna do? What does your attention get? What makes your heart just jump and pump out of your chest. What gets you going with enthusiasm and passion?
NFL football for so many of us is an enriching part of our lives. And we don’t play it. We don’t coach it, we, we watch it, we experience it. It’s a communal thing. In a divided country, it is one thing that brings people together unlike anything else. And so I think that’s one of the reasons why pro football is the most dominant sport in the United States, and really the most dominant form of entertainment in the United States from September through the Super Bowl.
And I love being a part of it, because I’m just like that as well. I want to be a part of something that gets my heart pumping on a Sunday or any day of the week, and NFL football does that for me. It’s done that for me since I’ve been a little, little kid, and the fact that I get to be in the captain’s chair and share that experience with millions of people on an NFL Sunday is an honor and a privilege, and I try and do it as well as I possibly can.
NW: For sure, and I guess just going off of that. Are there ever Sundays, when you’re not feeling it? You’re a little sick. You’re a little tired or…
SH: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
NW: How do you flip the switch when the lights come on?
SH: Yep, I would say this, and I’m not comparing myself to NFL athletes. They’re on another plane right. But like an NFL athlete, “Oh, you’re sick. You’re congested. You got the flu. Play through it. It’s game day.”
Because the players are trying to succeed, not only for themselves but for their teammates, their coaches and their fans. If I’m not feeling it on an NFL Sunday, “Suck it up.” It doesn’t matter. I’m doing this for the audience. It doesn’t matter. My own personal feelings, requirements whatever, block out all distractions and give the audience the absolute best that you possibly can.
Every season, there is at least one Sunday where I wake up, and I’m feeling exhausted or tired or whatever. Block it out, and it’s not about me. It’s about being there for my teammates, the rest of the crew on NFL Red Zone, for my bosses, who employ me at the NFL. And most importantly, for the fans that come to expect an enthusiastic, energetic, passionate, hopefully informative television host on NFL Red Zone. And I want to be there for them.
That’s my approach, and that’s my approach in life. And that’s my approach to when that happens in this particular part of my career.
NW: And then talking about the fans, over the past however many years you’ve kind of become part of the show itself. You’re a fan favorite, cult hero, whatever you want to call it. Tom Brady’s praising you. People are asking you to say seven hours of commercial-free football in the parking lot. Those sorts of things. Is that ever weird for you? And like, just what’s it like getting that attention just for doing something you love so much?
SH: Yeah, it is wild when I think back on being a 6-year-old, 8-year-old, 12-year-old boy in Rochester, Michigan, growing up, loving football, watching NFL football, to know that someday in the future there’s going to be a channel that shows all of the NFL games simultaneously, every touchdown from every game, not only that it exists, but that I would be the host of it.
And that people in my day-to-day life, it would resonate with them so much that they want to come up to me in the gym and take a selfie. Or they want me to record a message for their fantasy league or they would dress up like me for Halloween or The Simpsons would write a part for me on their show, like it’s a cultural phenomenon.
It’s a little odd, but I understand now where it’s at, and I want to lean into it. I will never, ever be a jerk to anyone that comes up to me that wants to share in that Red Zone experience. I mean, I’m in people’s homes on the one day a week that the entire family can probably be together, on the one day a week that most people have off of work. They invite me and us on NFL Red Zone into their home.
That is astounding. And it’s a privilege. It’s an honor. I want them to have an absolute, positive reaction to what I do, what we do on the show. And so when I meet people in real life, I 100 percent try and give people as much time as I possibly can, and just sharing like, “Yeah, it’s awesome, isn’t it? Red Zone! Awesome? Isn’t it awesome? What we get to do, what we get to experience together.”
I live in Los Angeles. And I tell my buddies who are in Hollywood, actors, writers, whatever, they’re entertainers. I say, “I hope you get a role in your acting career, or some story that you get to tell that resonates with the audience and propels your career the way Red Zone has been for me.”
That’s what I wish for my friends and for anyone out there who tries to be great at whatever they do, to find something that your skill set marries with the requirements of it. And that the customers love.
It’s very, very professionally rewarding, and I’m grateful. I’m humbled and grateful.
NW: And then something else I was wondering about is, you’re on live TV for 7 hours straight. Obviously, mistakes are going to happen.
SH: Oh, yeah.
NW: How do you deal with that as a professional? And then, similarly, are there any mistakes that are just in the back of your mind, like, “I can’t believe I said that guy’s name wrong” or whatever it is?
SH: Yeah, I try to be perfect. I do. I fall woefully short in my professional life and in my personal life, unfortunately. But I endeavor to try and be 100 percent accurate and perfect in every show. What the crew and I on NFL Red Zone say, is, we are all going to make mistakes. But, like our favorite football players, like our favorite football teams, let’s never make the same mistake twice. You touch a hot stove, you burn your hand on the stove, remember that, and don’t ever go back to it. And never repeat the same mistake twice. That’s the way I approach it.
If I make a mistake that’s public, which almost any mistake I make on Red Zone is probably going out over the airwaves, I need to calculate is that something that was bad enough that I need to come back and say, “I am so sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I said Aaron Rodgers threw 38 touchdowns in 2014 he actually threw 37 touchdowns.” Or is it something that we can just kind of move on? And you know what? I gotta. I gotta eat that mistake.
But I try and own up to it and correct it when it’s something that would be significant enough that the audience knows.
I had a terribly public one, if you want me to embarrass myself right now.
When Rosalynn Carter died, the president’s now late wife, I mistakenly had thought that Jimmy Carter had died. And I said the late Jimmy Carter on there, and he was very much alive….We were on a CBS game or whatever, and CBS News was running a crawl at the bottom of the screen, you know, breaking news: Rosalynn Carter, the wife of Jimmy Carter, died, and I said, “Well, wife of the late Jimmy Carter,” and it was like, “I just killed a president on television.” Like what? And my producer gets in my ear. He’s like, “Jimmy Carter’s not dead,” and I’m like. “Oh, my gosh, did I say the late Jimmy Carter?”
And so I had to come back on, and I had to apologize. And of course it’s not something you could laugh at in the moment, because you’re talking, you know, about the death of a public figure and what-not. But I mean nowadays it’s like you’ve got to own it. You got to own it and fall on your sword when you mess up. I hope the audience knows that I am aiming for perfection.
To mix a sports metaphor, I know I’m not going to make every free throw. But I want my percentage to be 99-point something.
And I will endeavor to do that until I get to that point.
NW: We’ll wrap it up here: You see as much football as anyone. You’ve got your finger on (the pulse) as much as anyone else. Right now ahead of Week 2, which two teams are going to the Super Bowl?
SH: Well, my preseason prediction was Bills-Lions, and I’ve been around the NFL long enough to know nobody knows nothing when it comes to predictions. Anyone’s is as good as mine is as good as anyone else’s, right? Tom Brady can make a Super Bowl prediction, and he could be every bit as right or as wrong as a cab driver in New York City.
But I said Bills-Lions, in part because I think that would be the greatest storyline Super Bowl that we could have. Those two fan bases making it to the big game, one of them winning the Super Bowl. That would be otherworldly, and I love drama and action.
That prediction looks OK right now, very early in the season. But the Lions did not come out strong in Week 1, as we all saw at Lambeau Field. They were handled by the Packers.
The Buffalo Bills played in what I can’t imagine another game going over the top of that. I think we may have seen the game of the year in Week 1, at least the regular-season game of the year in Week 1. The Bills-Ravens was absolutely incredible. And the Bills came out on top.
So the Bills might be hosting the playoffs all the way through with a lot of football to be played, but under pressure, still give me Lions-Bills. I’m not going to back off of that.
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