NBC’s Fast-Paced ‘Gold Zone’ Conjures Visions of Quick-Hit TV Viewing Across Sports, News, Debates
STAMFORD, Conn. — Chloe Kim, Jordan Stolz and Elizabeth Lemley trained hard to get to the 2026 Winter Olympics. So too have Andrew Siciliano and Scott Hanson — even though much of their work does not take place anywhere near ice or snow.
On one recent Sunday afternoon, Siciliano was tucked away in a corner of a production studio housed here at NBC Sports sprawling headquarters, helping Olympics viewers on the Peacock streaming service navigate between men’s hockey, women’s ski jumping, men’s curling and the high-speed sledding sport known as skeleton. Each sport had its own display, in a single video square, and at any moment, Siciliano might tell viewers to give more focus to one or the other. If something particularly interesting or pivotal took place one of the squares might take up the entire screen. In other moments, NBC Sports producers put up a “toast,” or an on-screen element viewers can click to go watch the specific sport without other distraction.
“We didn’t invent America’s short attention span,” says Siciliano. “We just kind of came around at the right time.”
Welcome to Gold Zone. The NBC Sports “whip-around” show takes its cues from the NFL’s Red Zone, an hours-long Sunday format that directs fans from one professional football game to another, checking in on crucial plays and riveting scenes. There are many who believe Gold Zone is just the first of a long line of new applications for the concept, in an era when more big media companies are scrambling to connect with younger, digitally savvy viewers eager to see something of interest, and then quickly move on to something else of note.
“Viewers may not want to see, say, the entirety of a curling match, but if it gets good, down to the wire, and/or features a nation or competitor they’re interested in, the format makes it super easy to focus on pivotal moments,” says Max Fuller, an assistant professor of sports media and journalism at Ithaca College. And while sports is a natural fit for the quick-hit structure, he adds, “this sort of format may be useful” in other areas, such as election coverage, or any event that has multiple elements all happening at the same time.
Hosts like Siciliano have already considered it. The sportscaster conjures up the idea of a debate with a more than a dozen candidates eager to speak to the public. “I’ve often joked that all 15 should be talking simultaneously into a single camera and then I’d be happy to host,” he quips. “I could go, ‘You know, the Senator from California just made a great point — let’s go there.’ Something like, ‘Let’s go to the former governor of Texas.’”
Before we’re distracted by the future, let’s take a trip into the past. While Gold Zone first won significant notice during the 2024 Paris Olympics, NBC has in fact been offering it for years. The concept was available during NBC’s 2012 Summer Olympics coverage from London, but via a digital site that didn’t have huge traction among viewers.
The streaming era changed everything. NBC put Gold Zone on Peacock for the Paris Olympics in 2024 and, suddenly, people found it. “My sister texted me and said, ‘You’re trending on Twitter. Gold Zone is trending on Twitter,’” recalls Amy Rosenfeld,. the NBC Sports veteran producer who oversees Gold Zone production. “As a TV producer, those are never words you want to hear, ever. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, my career is over. This is a dog. It’s going to be a mess.’ And it had some buzz. And it just sort of became a freight train.”
In the production studio, she says, “there are times where there’s eight or nine things happening simultaneously. But Paris was even more, and L.A. will be, like, mad.”
Others have already gotten on board. CBS News in 2024 unveiled a new “whip-around” format for its streaming properties. Viewers get taken to breaking news stories or moments taking place across areas covered by the company’s local stations. The Red Zone format was an inspiration for the concept. FanDuel Sports Network, the group of 15 regional sports outlets previously operated by Sinclair and Fox, last year introduced “FanDuel Sports Network Countdown Live,” as part of its early-evening lineup. The new hour-long program, hosted by former ESPN stalwart Stan Verrett, offers viewers a look at the run-up to key games taking place across the company’s entire portfolio.
The appeal is easy to understand, says Scott Hanson, who has been hosting NFL Red Zone since it launched in 2009. “It’s not that people have a short attention span,” he says. “No, it’s just that they want to shorten the time between those dopamine hits they get” between moments of interest. More media consumers are demanding such things, he says, particularly as people spend more time on Tik Tok or other short-from video display platforms. “Whoever I’m paying attention to, show me that you have eyes everywhere so that I don’t need to waste my time with anything. Trim the fat off it for me.”
Working for Gold Zone is tough, however, both on camera and off. On Red Zone, the announcers say, fans know what’s going on. They’re football diehards and don’t need the basics of curling spoon fed to them. “When I cut to a game on Red Zone, I’m saying why we’re watching this. It’s first and goal. It’s 14-14. There’s a minute left with no timeouts,” Hanson explains. “When I cut to an event on Gold Zone, I’m saying why we’re going there. But I also have to explain what we’re watching. What we’re looking for. Who we’re looking for. I don’t need to identify Dak Prescott to the Red Zone audience. I do need to identify Chloe Kim as one of the racers or competitors.”
The announcers need to study intensely, learning details not only about an athlete, but what a particular sport means to the populace of a country halfway around the world. They need to memorize factoids about specific competitors and explain to viewers why the coming moment is one they need to watch. Is there a medal at stake? Is time slipping away? Is this something for the record books? “Prepping is extreme” says Hanson. “It’s like learning a different language,” says Siciliano.
Sometimes, “it’s as if it’s as if you were in a blimp over the top of northern Italy with the most powerful telescope in the world,” says Hanson. “And from the blimp, you could see everything that was going on from a distance, and we’ll tell you when to zoom in telescopically to watch figure skating, to watch luge, to watch curling.”
Sports viewers — and perhaps general TV watchers? — may get a lot more of the format in the future. Under a deal recently struck between ESPN and the NFL, the Disney sports-media giant will be able to launch new kinds of Red Zone formats. Hanson believes it would work well for college football, maybe baseball, potentially golf. But how to isolate a pivotal moment in basketball or hockey when the action is more fluid? That, says Hanson, might be tough.
There may be surprising applications down the road, especially in an era when viewers want constant stimuli and distraction even as they watch an hour or two of TV. “I’ve had people suggest every type of Red Zone to me. Political Red Zone on an election night. Weather Red Zone, when a big snowstorm is sweeping across the northeast. Reality TV Red Zone. Just show me when they’re pulling each other’s hair and throwing wine at each other’s faces.” says Hanson, who adds: “If anyone’s reading, if any network executives or power brokers are reading this, I’m open for business.”
On one recent Sunday afternoon, Siciliano was tucked away in a corner of a production studio housed here at NBC Sports sprawling headquarters, helping Olympics viewers on the Peacock streaming service navigate between men’s hockey, women’s ski jumping, men’s curling and the high-speed sledding sport known as skeleton. Each sport had its own display, in a single video square, and at any moment, Siciliano might tell viewers to give more focus to one or the other. If something particularly interesting or pivotal took place one of the squares might take up the entire screen. In other moments, NBC Sports producers put up a “toast,” or an on-screen element viewers can click to go watch the specific sport without other distraction.
“We didn’t invent America’s short attention span,” says Siciliano. “We just kind of came around at the right time.”
Welcome to Gold Zone. The NBC Sports “whip-around” show takes its cues from the NFL’s Red Zone, an hours-long Sunday format that directs fans from one professional football game to another, checking in on crucial plays and riveting scenes. There are many who believe Gold Zone is just the first of a long line of new applications for the concept, in an era when more big media companies are scrambling to connect with younger, digitally savvy viewers eager to see something of interest, and then quickly move on to something else of note.
“Viewers may not want to see, say, the entirety of a curling match, but if it gets good, down to the wire, and/or features a nation or competitor they’re interested in, the format makes it super easy to focus on pivotal moments,” says Max Fuller, an assistant professor of sports media and journalism at Ithaca College. And while sports is a natural fit for the quick-hit structure, he adds, “this sort of format may be useful” in other areas, such as election coverage, or any event that has multiple elements all happening at the same time.
Hosts like Siciliano have already considered it. The sportscaster conjures up the idea of a debate with a more than a dozen candidates eager to speak to the public. “I’ve often joked that all 15 should be talking simultaneously into a single camera and then I’d be happy to host,” he quips. “I could go, ‘You know, the Senator from California just made a great point — let’s go there.’ Something like, ‘Let’s go to the former governor of Texas.’”
Before we’re distracted by the future, let’s take a trip into the past. While Gold Zone first won significant notice during the 2024 Paris Olympics, NBC has in fact been offering it for years. The concept was available during NBC’s 2012 Summer Olympics coverage from London, but via a digital site that didn’t have huge traction among viewers.
The streaming era changed everything. NBC put Gold Zone on Peacock for the Paris Olympics in 2024 and, suddenly, people found it. “My sister texted me and said, ‘You’re trending on Twitter. Gold Zone is trending on Twitter,’” recalls Amy Rosenfeld,. the NBC Sports veteran producer who oversees Gold Zone production. “As a TV producer, those are never words you want to hear, ever. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, my career is over. This is a dog. It’s going to be a mess.’ And it had some buzz. And it just sort of became a freight train.”
In the production studio, she says, “there are times where there’s eight or nine things happening simultaneously. But Paris was even more, and L.A. will be, like, mad.”
Others have already gotten on board. CBS News in 2024 unveiled a new “whip-around” format for its streaming properties. Viewers get taken to breaking news stories or moments taking place across areas covered by the company’s local stations. The Red Zone format was an inspiration for the concept. FanDuel Sports Network, the group of 15 regional sports outlets previously operated by Sinclair and Fox, last year introduced “FanDuel Sports Network Countdown Live,” as part of its early-evening lineup. The new hour-long program, hosted by former ESPN stalwart Stan Verrett, offers viewers a look at the run-up to key games taking place across the company’s entire portfolio.
The appeal is easy to understand, says Scott Hanson, who has been hosting NFL Red Zone since it launched in 2009. “It’s not that people have a short attention span,” he says. “No, it’s just that they want to shorten the time between those dopamine hits they get” between moments of interest. More media consumers are demanding such things, he says, particularly as people spend more time on Tik Tok or other short-from video display platforms. “Whoever I’m paying attention to, show me that you have eyes everywhere so that I don’t need to waste my time with anything. Trim the fat off it for me.”
Working for Gold Zone is tough, however, both on camera and off. On Red Zone, the announcers say, fans know what’s going on. They’re football diehards and don’t need the basics of curling spoon fed to them. “When I cut to a game on Red Zone, I’m saying why we’re watching this. It’s first and goal. It’s 14-14. There’s a minute left with no timeouts,” Hanson explains. “When I cut to an event on Gold Zone, I’m saying why we’re going there. But I also have to explain what we’re watching. What we’re looking for. Who we’re looking for. I don’t need to identify Dak Prescott to the Red Zone audience. I do need to identify Chloe Kim as one of the racers or competitors.”
The announcers need to study intensely, learning details not only about an athlete, but what a particular sport means to the populace of a country halfway around the world. They need to memorize factoids about specific competitors and explain to viewers why the coming moment is one they need to watch. Is there a medal at stake? Is time slipping away? Is this something for the record books? “Prepping is extreme” says Hanson. “It’s like learning a different language,” says Siciliano.
Sometimes, “it’s as if it’s as if you were in a blimp over the top of northern Italy with the most powerful telescope in the world,” says Hanson. “And from the blimp, you could see everything that was going on from a distance, and we’ll tell you when to zoom in telescopically to watch figure skating, to watch luge, to watch curling.”
Sports viewers — and perhaps general TV watchers? — may get a lot more of the format in the future. Under a deal recently struck between ESPN and the NFL, the Disney sports-media giant will be able to launch new kinds of Red Zone formats. Hanson believes it would work well for college football, maybe baseball, potentially golf. But how to isolate a pivotal moment in basketball or hockey when the action is more fluid? That, says Hanson, might be tough.
There may be surprising applications down the road, especially in an era when viewers want constant stimuli and distraction even as they watch an hour or two of TV. “I’ve had people suggest every type of Red Zone to me. Political Red Zone on an election night. Weather Red Zone, when a big snowstorm is sweeping across the northeast. Reality TV Red Zone. Just show me when they’re pulling each other’s hair and throwing wine at each other’s faces.” says Hanson, who adds: “If anyone’s reading, if any network executives or power brokers are reading this, I’m open for business.”