The NFL will continue their policy of not blacking out any games on television during the 2016 season.
For decades, the NFL’s television blackout policy was one of the biggest issues people had with the league. If a team didn’t sell out a set amount of tickets for their home game that week before the 72-hour deadline before kickoff, fans in that market wouldn’t get to see the game on television. It’s the reason fans in Tampa Bay for example, didn’t get to see many Bucs games on television until the late 1990’s.
In recent years, the league relaxed the policy to only require 85 percent of tickets to be sold to lift the blackout for that city. In 2015, the NFL got rid of the blackout rule all together as part of an experiment to see how it would affect ticket sales. For 2016, fans are going to get to sit at home and watch their local team without fear of getting blacked out:
The NFL extended for another year suspension of TV blackout rule. Goodell said more study needed before league wipes policy from its books
— Daniel Kaplan (@KaplanSportsBiz) March 28, 2016
In 2015, attendance was down just half of a percent over the 2014 season. From 2012 to 2014 (when the 85 percent rule was in place) just three games across the league were not shown on local television in that market.
The NFL has not ruled out bringing the blackout rule back if attendance drops dramatically during the 2016 season. The blackout rule was relaxed in part due to pressure from the FCC, who came out firmly against the policy and advocated for its removal.
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