The Chargers hope that the preseason helped them prepare for the regular season in more ways than one. Otherwise, their so-called “White Hot Monday Night” could be blacked out.
After receiving a 24-hour extension of the deadline for allowing both preseason games to be televised locally, the Chargers have received a 24-hour extension to lift the blackout for the regular-season opener against the Texans.
Roughly 3,500 general admission tickets remain unsold for Monday’s game. Both extensions during the preseason resulted in enough tickets being sold.
Typically, an extension isn’t granted unless arrangements have been made for the team and/or its sponsors to purchase the unsold tickets at 34 cents on the dollar. Which makes the sense of urgency created by the extension something other than true.
Selling out all home games will be something other than easy if the Chargers can’t sell out a Monday-night opener against a playoff team.
The good news for the league is that, with less than 48 hours to go until Sunday’s slate of 13 games, it appears that no other games will be blacked out locally for Week One. If the 24-hour extension trend holds, the Texans-Chargers game won’t be blacked out, either.