At a time when the NFL faces the potential elimination of its blackout rule, the league has embarked on an effort to prevent limitations on the ability to refuse to telecast games in the local market if those contests aren’t “sold out.” (More on what “sold out” actually means later.)
Via a website that carries no NFL logos or trademarks or other copyrighted materials, but with a privacy policy that links directly to NFL.com, the league calls its effort “Protect Football on Free TV.” The league has enlisted Hall of Famer Lynn Swann (and possibly others) to spread the word; Swann recently did so in an appearance on WXYZ-TV in Detroit.
“If it’s not broken,” Swann said, “what are they trying to fix? We have full stadiums, people come to the games. We’re the only sport where fans who don’t get to the game can watch it on free over-the-air television.”
Unless, of course, the game isn’t sold out. If that happens, it’s not available on any television, free or otherwise.
“The blackout rule helps support that, and it supports our broadcast partners,” Swann said, without explaining how being required to run three hours of P90X ads instead of the home game in the local market actually helps the broadcast partners.
“A full stadium means enthusiastic players, enthusiastic fans,” Swann said. “It means the announcers are enthusiastic. Everybody benefits all the way around.”
But the current blackout rule already allows every game to be played in something other than a full stadium. Only non-premium seats are included in the calculation of a sellout, and each team can now reduce its obligation to 85 percent of all non-premium seats.
So the blackout rule encourages full stadiums even though full stadiums no longer are required.
Swann calls the effort a “coalition” that allows fans to contact the FCC and to support the status quo, which will allow the league to prevent a free local telecast of games that aren’t sold out. The website contends that the attack on the blackout rule comes from a bogeyman as real and tangible as the love child of the Abominable Snowman and Bigfoot.
Pay-TV lobbyists have manufactured a controversy in an effort to change the current rule and charge fans for games that they currently watch for free.
We cannot let these special interests dictate what is best for NFL fans and their communities
- See more at: http://www.protectfootballonfreetv.com/#who-opposes-free-football-on-tv
“Pay-TV lobbyists have manufactured a controversy in an effort to change the current rule and charge fans for games they currently watch for free,” the website contends. “We cannot let these special interests dictate what is best for NFL fans and their communities.”
So instead the special interest that is the NFL will dictate what is best for NFL fans and their communities by concocting a phony threat to the ability to watch games on free TV.
“Pay-TV lobbyists”? Which “Pay-TV” companies are hiring lobbyists to fight the blackout rule, and why should anyone believe that the NFL would do business with those “Pay-TV” companies if they win?
Pay-TV lobbyists have manufactured a controversy in an effort to change the current rule and charge fans for games that they currently watch for free.
We cannot let these special interests dictate what is best for NFL fans and their communities.
- See more at: http://www.protectfootballonfreetv.com/#who-opposes-free-football-on-tv
It’s the best the NFL can do, because there’s no actual connection between preventing the local broadcast of games absent a full stadium and protecting the ability to televise of games on free TV. Without tangible evidence showing why and how a rule requiring home games to be televised on free TV in the local market regardless of attendance harms the ability to televise games on free TV generally, the effort will look and feel like a bass-ackward strategy for allowing the NFL to continue to do what it wants.
The NFL wants to maximize ticket sales, and the NFL wants to be able to put the squeeze on markets in which the tickets haven’t been sold. Ultimately, the NFL doesn’t want the government or anyone else telling the NFL what it can and can’t do. .
The reality, as noted earlier today, is that any significant reduction of the ability to watch games on free TV would invite far more serious governmental action via the scuttling of the broadcast antitrust exemption. Overturning the broadcast antitrust exemption would allow networks to negotiate with teams like the Cowboys, Patriots, and Steelers directly Notre Dame-style packages. That would create a dramatic income discrepancy among teams and little or no market for plenty of the 256 regular-season games to be televised anywhere, for free or otherwise.
That’s the last thing the NFL wants. Thus, the last thing that ever will happen is the disappearance of NFL games on free TV, regardless of whether the blackout rule lives or dies.