Blackout rules could be far different if NFL li...

I think the Blackout rule is ridiculous. Honestly if you have kids, an NFL stadium is the last place you want to take them. So what does the NFL suggest? In all honesty another huge problem is that in Jacksonville they block off entire sections to meet their sell out capacities, lowering their sellout number by thousands while other stadiums do not. Living in a city of 900k with a 70k stadium, it's a lot harder to get that stadium full than a city of 9 million, like NYC. Just do the figures alone and that shows that in my city nearly 10% of the population has to show to the game where as in NYC about 1%. Sound fair?

I have the nfl ticket package and pay greatly for it. Why is it I still get blacked out when there is no sell out. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't all teams get a part of that money through tv contracts?

I hate the NFL Blackout Rule and hope to see it fall by the wayside! I understand the leagues concern back in the early days of their television contracts, but that was over 40 years ago. This rule sucks for true fans that can't afford to go to games due to the high costs and lifting this rule would have no negative impact on the NFL's yearly revenue. I've been lucky as a Washington Redskins fan that has not had to deal with my favorite team being blacked out, but I can understand the frustration of the fans that must deal with this crap each season.

Just Mr. Nixon's luck that those are the tapes that didn't make it to the public. xD

Oh thanks for this bit of historical trivia, preserved forever by Nixon's Oval Office recording machine.

why is this still news on this hack of a web site... for certain there must be better headlines or blogs that cbssports.com could link to in the morning.

Chicago Blackhawks fans know that blackouts don't work. Their old owner blacked out home games in an attempt to bring fans to games, but the result was no one watched and no one went to see the crappy product he put on the ice. Alexei Zhamnov an exiciting pickup? Please. Now that he's dead, the game has changed. Patrick Kane et al are rocking it and deliver an exciting product that people can watch on tv.

What are you talking about?? Wirtz stopped showing ALL games when I was a kid; home sellout or not. THAT'S what killed fandom in Chicago, not whether they were sellouts or not. Chicago was a HUGE hockey town into the early 70's; keeping games from being televised was the stupidest thing he could have done.

orangemen90, you seemed to be interested enough in the article to make two posts. I am all for having current scores, standings and schedules but I also like reading articles like this- I never knew what originally brought blackouts around and this little historical nugget was quite informative. I don't have an issue with the NFL when it comes to Raven games but I do have one with our local cable company. The only Fox affiliate we have is from DC so when B-more plays a home game against an NFC team, we don't get to see it in my area of Western Md.

I believe that the blackout rules, as we know them today, will be rescinded in the near future, but will be replaced with a Pay-per-View policy. How that will effect games that are, or are not, sold out only the future will reveal. The NFL, ultimately, is a license to print money!

ravens98- Cable affiliate policies are odd. I live  a little north of Bmore and  get the local affiliates carrying the Ravens games. When I lived in Columbia, Md, we got both the Bmore & DC affiliates.  However, I adopted the Saints in 1984 when Irsay moved the Colts so the Red Zone satisfies my viewing needs.

See Rozelle was the real crook, not Nixon :-)

I've never been affected by it, since in my life the Giants always sold out. But I heard stories of their being blacked out, having to drive to the Poconos to watch games. The league is moving toward an a la carte, whatever game you want, policy. Interesting stuff with Nixon. He was a sports fan, all right.

Take all the games off broadcast tv, sell the advertising yourself, cut out all the middle men and sell access to the games AT A REASONABLE RATE. One more reason I wont need to get robbed by cable any more.

The blackout rules would be different if the NFL and/or Congress listened to the people. Soon, there will be a lawsuit in a city that paid for a stadium. It will argue that since the stadium was financed with public funds and the games are televised in other markets, the games should be telecast in the home markets, too. I hope they win the lawsuit. I also hope the NFL is investigated for antitrust violations soon.

with the blackouts the true fans dont get to see the game. ones and suites is a social thing. tailgaters just go to get drunk.

. Watching football games on regular TV isn't a right and I don't see how it should be something congress regulates




 Making people pay for billionairs to have stadiums through taxs is criminal also , so whats your point. Im sick of sports making tax payers pay for stadiums. When a team can pay someone 20 million dollars a year to play a game then they should beable to pay for their own stadium. The tax payers get screwed from every direction when a billionair gets a new playground, we get to pay even MORE for food, drink, parking, tickets, foam finger and hats and jerseys. thats what happens when you get a new stadium WE get to pay alot more to go, and the team makes MORE money for a average product . If tax payers pay for a stadium there should never be a blackout or they should pay for their own stadium period.   

 If tax payers pay for a stadium there should never be a blackout or they should pay for their own stadium period


This is a very good point! I think the city should kick in SOME money. Some cities have tried to hold a team hostage in the past. Baltimore tried to make the Irsays give up ownership. That led to the Indianapolis Colts. When cities refuse the owners always have the right to move. i don't see how Minnesota has that much leverage when LA is sitting there wide open? Then again this is the Vikings, and we tend to miss open recievers pretty often...