FCC urged to end NFL blackout rule

 Most people weighing in on a sports blackout rule are urging the Federal Communications Commission to scrap it.

Monday was the deadline for public comments on a petition by the Sports Fans Coalition to rescind the rule, which bars cable and satellite systems from carrying a sporting event that is blacked out on local broadcast television stations.

 The rule has effectively reinforced the NFL's own policy, which blacks out games in home markets that aren't sold out 72 hours ahead of time.

The issue of blackouts has grown significantly amid a down economy and improved HDTV technology. NFL tickets and other costs associated with attending stadiums is considered too high by many fans, and a more-enjoyable home TV experience is keeping other fans home.

This season all but two of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' home games – a "Monday Night Football" win over Indianapolis and a late-season Saturday night loss against Dallas - were blacked out locally under the NFL rule.

The FCC has received about 140 comments, and an overwhelming majority favors the petition. That doesn't count nearly 3,500 the Sports Fans Coalition also sent in from people clicking an email on the group's website urging that the rule be repealed. The FCC grouped all of those in one filing, under "individual comments from fans." Many of those urging the FCC to eliminate the rule argued that taxpayers have helped pay for the stadiums and should not have their home games blacked out.

Five Democratic senators filed comments with the FCC Monday urging it to reform the sports blackout rule.

"These blackouts are ruining the experience of rooting for the home team and are unjustly hurting fans," wrote Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. "That many of these stadiums were constructed or remodeled using taxpayer dollars underscores the disservice done to fans by blackouts." They called the NFL's blackout policy "a relic of a different time" and said it was time for it to end.

Several comments came from fans of the Buffalo Bills, who had three of their seven games in Buffalo blacked out last season.

Patricia Rebmann of Gowanda, N.Y., complained that residents in that area help pay for maintaining the stadium through taxes but often cannot watch the home games on TV. Rebmann said that she and her husband are senior citizens and find it nearly impossible to attend games with her husband's physical condition.

"Please, please, please do whatever it takes to lift the NFL's blackout rule so we can reap a few hours of entertainment for our tax dollars," she wrote.

Brandon Bulkley, a self-described Kansas City Chiefs fan from Roeland Park, Kan., urged the FCC to "side with the little man for once, because without us there would be no money-making Goliath called the NFL."

One of the few people in support of the rule, Peter A. Nigro, urged that the cutoff for blackouts be reduced from 72 hours to 48 or 24.

"I think without a blackout rule of some kind ... that stadium attendance would be affected somewhat by it," he wrote.

The NFL said in its filing Monday night that the sports blackout rule "supports contractual provisions that are fundamental to broadcast television and thereby enable universal distribution of high quality content, including NFL football, to all Americans and to our fans - all at no cost to those fans."

"Sports blackout policies, supported by the FCC's sports blackout rule, promote live attendance and thus improve the stadium experience," the league said.

The National Association of Broadcasters said in its filing that while it sympathized with fans frustrated over blackouts, elimination of the rule "would hurt local broadcasters and their viewers and could accelerate the migration of popular sports programs from free to pay TV."

In its filing with the FCC Monday, the Sports Fan Coalition and other groups called the sports blackout rule "a regulatory backstop to an obnoxious and outdated league policy ... At a time of persistently high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and consumer uncertainty, the sports blackout rule supports blatantly anti-fan, anti-consumer behavior by professional sports leagues."

The Sports Fan Coalition receives money from Verizon, which provides pay TV, and has received funding from Time Warner Cable in the past, but insists it is "driven by fans."

The number of NFL blackouts has decreased steadily over the years: 50 percent of games in the 1970s (after the 1973 law), 40 percent in the 1980s, 31 percent in the 1990s, and 8 percent in the 2000s. Last season's 6 percent was the fifth-lowest, according to the NFL.

But some teams still have high numbers, including the Bucs, who had five of seven home games blacked out last season. An eighth home game was moved to London, making it available on television in the Tampa area. The Cincinnati Bengals had six of their eight home games blacked out last season.

The NFL's own blackout policy, which applies to broadcast TV, is much less restrictive than it once had been. Until 1973, the NFL blacked out all home games, whether they were sold out or not. That year, President Richard Nixon signed a law preventing blackouts of games that were sold out 72 hours ahead of time, and when the law expired, the NFL agreed to make it a league policy.

Last week, The Associated Press reported that in 1972, the NFL turned down a deal from Nixon in which the league would allow playoff games to be televised in the hometown city, and the president would block any legislation requiring regular-season home games to be televised as well. The story was based on a previously unreported tape recording, now in the National Archives, of a telephone call between Nixon and Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst.