The U.S. Senate is leaning heavily on the NFL to get rid of its antiquated blackout rule. Considering it hasn’t been enforced once this year, why not?
The NFL enacted its current policy of blacking out games in home markets if the stadium doesn’t sell out 72 hours prior to kickoff in 1973.
The NFL is the only major sports league that does this and at least one prominent U.S. Senator wants the practice ended, according to Pro Football Talk.
"“There is something wrong with a situation in which the NFL can say to all those fans who have made the league what it is today, ‘You had better purchase tickets, or else,’” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said. “The NFL and its teams have benefited from myriad public benefits including an exemption from antitrust rules, a specialized tax status and taxpayer dollars that subsidize their multimillion dollar football stadiums.“These public benefits carry with them a responsibility back to the public—an obligation to treat their loyal fans with fairness.”"
That’s all well and good—the NFL hasn’t blacked out a game this season anyway, but the rules come from a time when there were three channels on the television dial (yes, televisions had dials in those days) and teams derived a much larger portion of their revenue from the old-fashioned butts in stadium seats.
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The Federal Communications Commission voted in September to quit enforcing the NFL’s blackout rule, but that didn’t mean the rule was gone.
Even if the present conditions mean that the blackout rule is effectively void, it would still be a show of good faith for the NFL to lift it for good.
After all, they have so many other ways to get their mitts on our cash, they don’t really need a 40-year-old one that isn’t even relevant in today’s fractured TV landscape.
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