Depending on your tolerance for abuse, Hanson has one of the world’s best jobs or one of the worst. He spends seven hours tethered to his desk, standing more often than sitting, while joined by a researcher, a spotter, a stage manager and two cameramen, in front of a bank of nine widescreen monitors. He is linked via talkback to a producer on the other side of the building and via a printer to editors preparing shot sheets for upcoming highlight packages.

“Imagine your boss telling you that you will stand at your desk for seven hours of an eight-hour day,” Hanson said. “You will get one bathroom break, for two minutes. We will bring you a sandwich at your desk, and you will be told when you can take a bite.”

Sounds brutal, but, clearly, Hanson loves his job. He gets so wired, he said, that he spends two hours Sunday night at his desk, drinking water and Gatorade to rehydrate (with one potty break, he avoids liquids while on the air) and, when he has visitors, talking a mile a minute as he winds down from a day of non-stop football.

“When we are at our busiest in the (noon CST) block of games, I was watching nine games with two people feeding me stats and players names,” he said. “I had the coordinating producer in my ear, 12 sources of stimulus coming at any given moments and no commercial breaks.

“People tell me that if I don’t already have (attention deficit disorder), I’ll have it now.”

Hanson, a native of Michigan who graduated from Syracuse, said he developed the skills for his job naturally.

“I would be the guy in the press box with his laptop open, watching the scores, and jabbing other guys and saying, ‘Tom Brady just hit a pass to the 5-yard line. Peyton Manning just hit a 50-yard bomb to Reggie Wayne. They’re up 21-0 in the first quarter. Did you hear that JaMarcus Russell got benched in Oakland?’” he said.

Hanson and Kent Camera, RedZone’s producer, estimate that the show aired 1,024 NFL touchdowns this season either live or on tape. It’s an informative, even exhilarating innovation – the best way (along with DirecTV’s comparable Red Zone channel) to watch the NFL on any given Sunday.

“When you find something you love, you put everything you have into it,” Hanson said. “My whole life is orchestrated around hosting NFL RedZone – sleeping habits, eating habits, reading and free time, research, what I watch on TV. I theoretically could talk about every player in the NFL. But it’s great. I love it.”