American football’s National Football League defended the broadcast blackout rule in a filing to the Federal Communications Commission, the country’s media regulator. The rule blocks US sports events from being shown live on television in their local market unless all tickets to attend have been sold.
Monday, February 13, was the deadline for comments on a petition from the Sports Fans Coalition, which represents five supporter groups, to have the rule scrapped.
“Sports blackout policies, supported by the FCC’s sports blackout rule, promote live attendance and thus improve the stadium experience,” the league said. The league added that the 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.”
The NFL supports the existing regulation, which prevents local and national broadcasters from televising its matches in the home team’s market unless all tickets have been sold 72 hours before kick-off.
The National Association of Broadcasters, a coalition of US broadcasters, said in a separate filing that eliminating the rule “would hurt local broadcasters and their viewers and could accelerate the migration of popular sports programmes from free to
pay-television.”
However, the Associated Press said that the vast majority of the 140 comments filed were in favour of scrapping the rule.
The Sports Fan Coalition called the rule “a regulatory backstop to an obnoxious and outdated league policy… [that] supports blatantly anti-fan, anti-consumer behaviour by professional sports leagues.”
Five US senators from the Democratic Party were among those to oppose the current rule. Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan said in their joint filing that the NFL’s blackout policy was “a relic of a different time.”
They added: “That many of these [NFL] stadiums were constructed or remodelled using taxpayer dollars underscores the disservice done to fans by blackouts.”
The FCC has not said when it will rule on the matter.