Final Countdown: 72 Hours or Bust

Just because the NFL season kicks off tomorrow doesn’t mean everybody is excited about it. Three teams and their fans have a legitimate reason not to be excited: San Diego, Jacksonville, & Oakland. San Diego withstanding, Jacksonville & Oakland may not be excited to begin with. Both teams are projected to be the worst teams in their respective divisions (AFC South & AFC West), with Oakland additionally known as the worst-run franchise in pro football.

The reason said teams are sweating bullets is due to the NFL’s “blackout rule,” which has been in effect since 1973. To be succinct, the blackout rule states that all games must be sold out 72 hours before kickoff in order to be shown on local television.

The obvious goal of such a rule is to encourage a city to support its team in the stands so that the entire fanbase can watch their team for free every Sunday. For teams with rabid followings (Dallas, Philadelphia, Tennessee, etc.) blackouts have never been an issue. Teams that are formerly expansion teams (Jacksonville), have historically underperformed in recent years (Oakland), or have decrepit stadiums (San Diego) are the ones that have faced blackout scenarios over the last few seasons.

Jacksonville may miss have their entire eight game home schedule on local television. The team is in the smallest media market in the league, and has lost nearly 20,000 season ticket holders from a year ago. San Diego, on the other hand, has struggled to sell tickets to a stadium that was built in 1967 and has yet to be renovated. Oakland, meanwhile, is just plan terrible. Any sports fan (think Bengals, Clippers, etc.) can sympathize with fans refusing to pay for season or single-game tickets to see a team that would have a tough time beating LA’s real pro team, the USC Trojans.

The NFL’s position is understandable: they want teams to do their best to sell tickets, even to the point of threatening to alienate the game from most of its fans in order to achieve sellouts. There are certain times, however, that rules should be relaxed. The economic downturn of the present is one of those times. The NFL gave the city of New Orleans a reprieve after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the city has responded by selling out games constantly, even with the city still in recovery mode.

When the average person is struggling to pay their mortgage, it makes absolutely no sense to punish a city by pulling their favorite team off the local airwaves. Professional football in America has become “America’s Pastime” over the last decade. Why risk that title just to make a point? The NFL needs to realize that in order to stay true to their product, they have to stay true to their consumer.