NFL American football teams the Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals avoided local television blackouts of their weekend play-off games after businesses stepped in to purchase remaining blocks of tickets to ensure stadia were sold out.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper said that more than 200 free tickets were made available by the Packers for distribution among military families and 50 tickets were given to Green Bay Southwest High School for a special drawing as the team sought to sell out Lambeau Field for Sunday’s 23-20 defeat to the San Francisco 49ers.
The Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper added the Bengals, who lost 27-10 to the San Diego Chargers, were some 7,000 seats short of a sell-out before businesses stepped in to purchase a “large quantity” of tickets to ensure Paul Brown Stadium reached capacity.
The NFL has blacked out two regular-season games this season for failing to sell out, with the league’s policy coming under the spotlight in recent months. The blackout rule prevents games from being shown live on television in their local market if they fail to meet a specified level of ticket sales and the NFL said last month that it would “strongly oppose” a proposal by US regulators to scrap the rule.
The US Federal Communications Commission, the country’s media regulator, made its outline proposal in November. Earlier this year, the FCC asked for comments on a petition filed by five groups that said the rule “supports blatantly anti-fan, anti-consumer behaviour.” The agency last month released a notice of its proposal to eliminate the rule, and it is currently serving a 60-day period for the public to submit comments. The rule was created nearly 40 years ago to safeguard attendances during the growth of television coverage. Under current NFL policy, broadcasts of home games in a team’s home territory are not shown if the game has not sold out 72 hours in advance.