Inside the NFL is on the outside looking in, again.
A must-watch highlights repository in the days before the Internet, Inside the NFL has struggled in recent years. John Ourand of Puck reports that the show will be on the move, again.
The CW held the rights to the weekly program for the past two years. It has decided not to renew the show.
After an extended run at HBO, Inside the NFL spent 13 years at Showtime before a brief run at Paramount+. It’s unknown where it will land in 2025.
As Ourand notes, there aren’t many options. Ourand adds that the league has opened talks with “several interested parties,” but no announcement is imminent. Some network may view buying the show as a price to be paid to otherwise have a good relationship with the league.
Still, the overriding question is whether anyone will watch. It never creates news, never moves the needle. Even with Bill Belichick on the show in 2024, it was a tree that fell in an empty forest. (Indeed, the only news it made last year came from the hiring of Belichick.)
If the show is going to survive, it needs to be ripped down and reimagined. Highlights are everywhere. Debates are everywhere. Interviews are everywhere. Inside the NFL needs to come up with a fresh approach that gives the audience something that it wants — and something that it can’t get anywhere else.
In an ever crowded landscape of NFL media options, it’s entirely possible that this is impossible. And the inescapa
ble conclusion could be that there’s no longer a seat at the table for Inside the NFL.
