http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/09 ... out-rules/

Basically the FCC doesn't think they should be helping the NFL sell more tickets.

ugh, FINALLY

now detroit won't be threatened to get off their ass and spend their life savings just to watch a shit game.

Thanks obama! now just apply this to ALL sports, especially basketball and maybe ill actually buy league pass again!

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

The FCC vote is today.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/sn ... story.html

MLB/NBA/NHL blackouts aren't contingent on sellouts, only territorial rights. If NBA games had to sell out to be on TV, two-thirds of the league wouldn't be able to show home games. It's going to be a knock-down-drag-out fight to get full slates of games on the air in places where they're entitled to be on but aren't -- Rockford and downstate not getting channel 9 Hawks/Bulls games, for instance.

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In any event, why should the FCC have been concerned with blackout rules in the first place? Made no sense in 75; certainly doesn't now.

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

They say that even if the blackouts are lifted, there's ostensibly nothing preventing the NFL from contracting "blackouts" (maybe with different nomenclature) with cable and satellite providers next time the contract comes around. Now whether the gov't can (or, then, will) intervene is another matter entirely. Possibly not quite the 'victory' one might otherwise have hoped for.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

By the end of this current TV contract, half the NFL will be in prison anyway.