Oakland Raiders-Dallas Cowboys preseason opener to be blacked out locally

It is not uncommon to see preseason games fail to sell out, after all fans across the league are wise to the fact that first team players are likely only to get a select few snaps during opening week of the preseason and would rather save their hard earned money on tickets for the real season.

But that apathy at the box office leads to blackouts regionally and that is what will be the case on Friday for the Oakland Raiders 2013 opener against the Dallas Cowboys at O.co Coliseum. With the Black Hole projected to be half full on Friday night, the NFL is set to impose the blackout restriction on the Oakland area moving the preseason telecast to tape delay.

Fans outside of the Bay Area can find the game on NFL Network on Friday as the game is set to be live nationally on their programming guide for the weekend. The blackout restriction will sadly affect Oakland residents who have NFL Network, meaning fans will have to shovel up money for a ticket or watch the game on delay to find their preseason fix.

It is a shame the NFL’s blackout policy affects the preseason where ticket prices are not much lower than prices for the regular season, at least not enough to justify spending money on two preseason games as opposed to picking up an extra regular season ticket later in the year. At the moment NFL games that do not sell out are not shown locally, including preseason games. Raider Nation will have to deal with that on Friday as the homebase will have to either go see the game live or be left in the dark until the NFL allows local markets to air their tape delay telecasts.

Check your local listings for broadcasts in your area as it is likely that several preseason games will not be sellouts and will undergo NFL imposed blackouts.