NFL Blackouts Hurt Fanbases
Posted by Seth Walder | Posted in NFL | Posted: September 1, 2009 at 9:19 pm
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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced today that 12 teams are in danger of facing TV blackouts due to the current economic climate, including the Jacksonville Jaguars. This season will be the first full one the NFL will have during the recession, and teams are definitely worrying about the effects on attendance. NFL rules state that teams that down sell out a game within 72 hours of a home game will face a cable blackout.
The reasoning behind this type of policy is relatively straight forward, if a team can’t sell out its home games, keeping fans from seeing the game on TV encourages more to attend future games. It’s the type of thinking that has dominated sports thinking for the majority of the 20th century, but unfortunately, it comes at a cost. Even if we’re going to assume that that fan wanted to see the game, the whole fact that the stadiums arent filling because of the economic downturn is still there, and shelling out the greenbacks to see the game may not be a feasible option. So what happens then? That fan cannot watch the game and eventually their interest declines. Regardless of whether or not the fan even considered going to the game, its pretty tough for them to maintain their level of fandom without the ability to watch half of the team’s 16 games.
It actually was the New York Yankees that changed this type of philosophy in baseball. Every team blacked out their home games on TV back then, but the Yankees were revolutionary in deciding to televise every baseball game, regardless of whether it was home or not. What ensued was a total domination of the New York fanbase, and the Yankees were able to take a much higher percentage of New Yorkers as fans, leaving the Mets in the dust, a disparity that still exists to some degree today.
Blackouts are usually bad for teams as well, because they fail to receive the television income from the game, a significant amount of money. Clearly, the solution is simple here: The NFL should know what’s best for the sport and what’s best for its fans and scratch its policy. It’s not going to happen, but one can hope.
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This seems so obvious. How could the NFL not realize this logic? I mean, this may have worked in the 1950s, but this is really idiotic now.
there’s a similar situation in england – 3pm blackout on saturdays to protect attendance not only for premier league but the lower leagues as well. there’s something wrong with the fact i can watch every single premier league game live in thailand (every. single. one.) and you can’t get anywhere near that in england.
although soccer saturday can be quite amusing to watch..