The NFL will not be enforcing the blackout rule in 2015. Apparently, this applies to preseason games as well.
One rule (the blackout rule) down, one (the “no game can air against a team’s home game in its home market, even if it means taking away half of a doubleheader”) to go.
Lord yes on your second rule.
It makes me crazy that the nfl is trying to force my fandom to my home state if a better game is on
I heard (and it makes sense), that the reason this was done is because of the LA market opening up in 2016 (rumored).
There are strong rumors going around that LA will get 2 teams in the next 2-3 years, and the NFL doesn’t want to black out games in the LA market before the teams can develop a fan base.
I am dubious that 2 teams can thrive in LA. They have the population, but the NFL has had teams there in the past, and they have all left. Now, they are talking about filling a 90,000 seat stadium for 16 straight weeks?
I have never lived in LA, but everyone I have ever talked to about it says LA is more of a college football town, and that nakes sense… Baseball and basketball rule the fan passion, and that’s just the way it is.
If LA gets a team, I hope it is only one, and I hope it’s the Chargers. (Sorry, San Diego). The rumor has both the Rams and Chargers moving to LA, and the Raiders moving to St. Louis.
The Raiders in St. louis sounds like such a bad idea. I can’t picture people in St. Louis dressing like Raider fans in Oakland. The Raiders belong in Oakland… Period. It would be like moving the Steelers from Pittsburgh or the Cowboys from Dallas.
Better yet, switch them. If we could capture the outrage that would follow, we would be energy-independent for centuries!
I actually think they did it so sports talk radio and blogs won’t have their usual rants about the expense of going to a game versus the big screen at home. It’s an easy way to eliminate one of the negative points of NFL coverage each year
Or, it’s an experiment by the NFL to see how many people choose not to go to the game if they know in advance that it will be on TV even if it’s not sold out. I don’t think the NFL would be doing this if it wasn’t for the fact that very few games were blacked out last year. (I am assuming this has something to do with each team having the option to lift the blackout if they reach a certain percentage of the seats being sold. Among other things, this prevents a situation where the TV station that would air the game locally would buy the remaining, say, 5000 tickets, then give them to charities, because it knows the local team’s game would generate a much larger audience and therefore it could charge more for local advertising.
Another possible reason, especially for extending this to pre-season games; how many teams that currently make season ticket holders buy full-price tickets for pre-season games will continue to do so, now that they know that it’s not necessary to sell the game out in order for it to air live locally?
Being in the New York market means I have never had to deal with blackouts. Even the Jets sell out. But it has always annoyed me that other markets get to see double headers when I never could.