Due to out-of-date and widely reviled NFL rules, games in Cincinnati, Green Bay, and Indianapolis – where the stadiums have failed to completely sell out – may face local market blackouts this weekend, despite the fact that FCC recently and unanimously voted to eliminate the Blackout Rule. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio has been in front of this issue for some time, and has this to say about playoff weekend, in a letter to Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission:
Brown has previously pointed out how the blackout rules fail to address the realities of the modern era of not only sports viewing, but sports marketing and sales:
The value of the League was indisputably and substantially enhanced by televising games. Many of the nation’s top economists have concluded that local television blackouts have little or no effect on ticket sales, and even found that local blackouts harm consumers without producing a significant financial benefit to teams. As an estimated 60% of the League’s revenue is generated from game broadcasts, and only 20% from ticket sales, this new policy demonstrates that the League understands the changing realities of sports economics in the 21st century. We applaud the NFL’s decision to address its decades old, anachronistic and anti-fan blackout policy; we only ask that it go a little further in making the policy one that teams are free to embrace.
Mediaite notes it would be especially galling to take the game away from the residents of the host cities, considering that their taxes subsidize the teams and stadiums already. As Brown’s website points out, the stadium cost local taxpayers $450 million and the City of Cleveland pays in $850,000 a year to the repair budget.
But as KSBW reports, there is still a battle to be had.
In response to the FCC’s move to end the rule, the NFL said it would “strongly oppose any change in the rule.”
“We are on pace for a historic low number of blackouts since the policy was implemented 40 years ago,” said Brian McCarthy, a vice president at the NFL. “While affecting very few games the past decade, the blackout rule is very important in supporting NFL stadiums and the ability of NFL clubs to sell tickets and keeping our games attractive as television programming with large crowds.”
The NFL blackout issues isn’t new to Brown. In 2012, he wrote a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell that asked the league to reverse its blackout policy.
In Thursday’s letter, Brown said showing the game on television should not hinge on whether people can afford tickets.
“Sports fans make significant financial investments in their home teams through local, county, and other taxes and should not be denied access to a local game because they cannot afford tickets,” he wrote. “The current blackout policy does not serve taxpayers, sports fans, or networks.”