The NFL blackout rule in light of current economic conditions is an archaic, punitive and draconian rule.
Fuck you NFL. Rescind your blackout rule, or amend it somehow.
That is all.
Do you live in Jacksonville? I know they are having big problems with ticket sales but they are not alone.
BTW, there is a loophole - expensive club seats don’t count if they are unsold. The Redskins don’t always sell all their club seats but the games are still on TV in DC.
On the one hand, I can see your point. But Roger Goodell has a good point as well–it’s hard to get someone to buy something when you give it away for free. Professional football is one of the best sports to watch on television. Why buy tickets (and hot dogs, and beers, and parking…) when you can watch it in glorious high-definition television without paying a cent?
I’m in the Cincinnati area, and we’re teetering on the verge of a blackout for our home opener against the Bronk-hoes.
This is a league-wide issue, not just sucky/small market teams. It’s the economy, and if the NFL were to take some limited action to temporarily lift the blackouts, they would come out looking like real good guys here.
Or, you know, NFL teams could lower their ticket prices. They raised them when the economy was good. Why not consider lowering some prices for your less desirable seats to facilitate a sellout?
Are the Lions, with their combination of high unemployment in Detroit and 0-16 season, going to sell out their games this year?
Minnesota is having trouble selling out all their games, and the went to the playoffs last season and just signed Mr Wonderful!
Jacksonville is traditionally a good team, they aren’t going to sell out a single home game this year, according to projections.
I totally understand. I would rather go to the games IF I can get a decent seat, otherwise the best seat in the house is at my house.
All thee good seats are sold out.
First of all, the NFL makes far more money from its television deals than it does from ticket sales. Second of all, it was this exact reasoning that pretty much killed fan support of the Chicago Blackhawks.
Blackouts are bullshit.
I love going to the Indianapolis 500 as often as I can. However, there are plenty of people in this city that cannot/will not put up with the crowds/heat/expense. You could reduce the cost of entry to free (infield tickets are $20), and they still wouldn’t go. You can even park inside, bring all the food/beverages you want - but there are people that still won’t go.
Yet they can’t enjoy it on television until the 11pm reairing. I just don’t understand the logic.
This.
I have absolutely no problem with the blackout rule, as long as it is applied in conjunction with realistic ticket prices.
As it is, ticket prices go up exponentially when times are good and don’t come down at all when times are bad.
I live 3 hours from Charlotte but I could get a blackout too. The NFL says our local TV stations broadcast close enough to Charlotte that we are included in a Panthers blackout. Blackouts should only include the local TV market, not secondary ones like here in Raleigh.
Paul Orndorff is playing for the Vikings? 
That said, I agree the NFL could get themselves some goodwill in the bank by easing the blackout rule this year…and they may need that goodwill, as rumors persist about a possible lockout looming after the 2010 season.
As an alternative, the NFL could make games that would normally be blacked out on broadcast channels available on PPV in the blackout area. Charge say $10 for the game on PPV. That way the home team gets revenue they would not otherwise get, and the fans have an option for seeing the game.
As a Bucs fan, I’ve never had to worry about blackouts, but Orlando is a ‘primary market’ for the Jaguars (2 hours away) and a secondary market for Tampa (1 hour away), inexplicably, so presumably I’ll only be able to watch one game some of the time this season.
What happens during a blackout? Do they show an out-of-market game, or does the local station have to fill in the time itself?
The danger is that after a while, you miss football less and less. Detroit had a lot of blackouts last year. After a while people quit talking about them on Monday mornings. Near the end ,the perfect season was discussed, but most of the season there was little talk. There is a real danger. People will find something else to do, and slowly the NFL will fade in importance.
They show an out of market game when your local team is blacked out.
The NFL is careful to not show too many games - they only allow 1 network per week to show 2 games - 5 total per week on all 4 networks. Compare that to college FB where I can normally watch 15 or more games per week on about 7 networks.
Yes, yes, 100 times yes.
If Goodell wants to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, all he needs to do is follow the path that Bill Wirtz set.
It’s terribly outdated thinking and is probably the only thing that could harm the NFL’s popularity at this point.
The NFL is unique because all TV money is evenly divided among the 32 teams. They don’t have a problem with a team like the Yankees making a killing off TV because they are in a giant market and other baseball teams getting a lot less money.
BTW, the Blackhawks were #1 in attendance last year.
NHL on ESPN - Scores, Stats and Highlights
Their attendance was bad when the team was bad - just like 95% of teams in America
The Blackhawks have greatly increased in popularity since Wirtz died.
No, it’s a sucky/small market team issue. There is zero chance any of my Giants or Jets broadcasts will get blacked out, and I imagine the same is true in Chicago, Dallas, Green Bay, Philadelphia, and Washington.
I’m on the border of the NYC and NE market, so I also get all the Patriots games. (I get two channels for each broadcast network: the NYC feed and Hartford, CT feed. Lots of games; yum!) I would bet a pile of cash that none of the Patriots games have any chance of being blacked out, either.
Goodell said that they’ve been concerned about empty seats for a few years now, going back to before the economy went to shit. Empty stadiums make for bad tv. I’m not convinced showing a game on tv that only has a half-filled stadium (like in the preseason) would be any better for the NFL’s image than blacking out a game for a market that got hit particularly hard by the recession.
That’s one of the driving forces behind his desire to expand the regular season to 18 games: to get those joke preseason games off of tv. The games themselves are actually sold out, but there are no butts in seats. It’s the butts in seats that he cares about; ticket sales aren’t really the issue.
Poor people can’t really afford to go to games even if you give away tickets for free, so I don’t think that’s the answer.
The reason preseason games sell out is because nearly every team requires season ticket buyers to buy at least one preseason ticket per regular season seat.
Ticket prices should be lowered. Demand is low, and price should go with it. Football games are already way too expensive - the game was built on its blue collar roots and yet the average blue collar guy can’t afford to go to a game. When the economy was booming and demand was high - then it’s logical to raise prices - but I haven’t even heard discussion of cutting ticket prices to match a natural lull in the demand cycle.
Getting a city to build a team a stadium, and then charging people to buy a seat license, and then finally charging them for some very expensive tickets is a pretty ridiculously good racket the NFL has set up.
I’m hooked on football, but if we see record numbers of blackouts for modern times this year and it creates a big backlash against the NFL, they will have earned it.