FCC Votes To Eliminate NFL Blackout Rules

UPDATE 11:30am 9/30:  The FCC has voted to eliminate the sports blackout rule, removing a 40-year-old regulation from the books that helped keep NFL games and other sports off TV when a city’s hometown team failed to sell out.

The rule prevented cable and satellite systems from showing an NFL or other major sporting event if it was blacked out on a local broadcast station in that market. The elimination of the rule, however, still won’t prevent the NFL or other sports teams from forging private pacts with broadcast stations to keep games off the air if ticket sales fall short.

Nevertheless, the NFL and the National Assn. of Broadcasters opposed the move, arguing that it will help drive the migration of games to pay TV platforms. Under the FCC’s action, cable and satellite providers won’t be prevented from obtaining rights to retransmit games from out-of-market stations.



Earlier posting...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday will vote on whether to eliminate a decades-old rule that has prohibited pay-TV providers from airing some home sports games, such as NFL football games, if the tickets to those games did not sell out, according to Reuters.

Four of five FCC commissioners, including Chairman Tom Wheeler, have publicly indicated support for ending the policy, which is known as a sports blackout rule and is backed by the broadcasters and the National Football League.

The 1975 rule, originally meant to ensure that television broadcasts of sports games did not hurt local ticket sales, has faced mounting criticism that it was outdated.

The policy has banned cable and satellite provides from airing sports games in their home markets if a league or a team requires that all or most of the tickets be sold before the game can be shown on TV.

Only two NFL games, or less than 1 percent, were blacked out as a result of the rule last season and none so far this year, according to the NFL. In several instances, some businesses helped avoid blackouts by buying blocks of unsold tickets.

The NFL and the broadcasters have warned that without the blackout rule, popular professional football games may become available only to those who pay for cable and satellite service instead of free over-the-air television.

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