After nearly 40 years of allowing an arcane rule to exist, the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday finally eliminated the sports blackout rule via a unanimous vote from its board of commissioners.
"With this decision the FCC is officially out of the sports blackout business," FCC commissioner Ajit Pai said.
An important distinction: the NFL can still choose to enforce blackouts as the rule is currently written, and FCC commissioner Michael O'Reilly believes the league will continue to enforce it.
"The NFL has the right to enforce their current blackout rules and I suspect that they will continue to do so," O'Reilly said.
Clearly the NFL objected to ending the policy, warning that games could possibly move away from broadcast and into "paid" television.
Leagues have hid behind the FCC rule, chairman Wheeler said. "I hope the NFL will seize this oppt to repudiate blackout."
— daniel kaplan (@dkaplanSBJ) September 30, 2014
The blackout rule affected the NFL more than any other sport, though football does pretty good business.
While the league is not suffering from a serious issue with blackouts, we'll see how they handle it moving forward.
