September 30, 2014

Lights On: The Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday it repealed its sports blackout rule for the National Football League, eliminating a decades-old ban on airing local games that were not sold out.

posted by Bonkers to football at 03:05 PM - 4 comments

It's amazing how long it took for the FCC to abolish this. I hope it puts pressure on the NFL to stop putting it in contracts and it drops enforcement of the existing clause.

posted by rcade at 10:28 AM on October 01, 2014

Because I'm too lazy to actually read the article right now, does this ruling affect the other sports as well?

posted by NoMich at 01:51 PM on October 01, 2014

The article says NFL, but the FCC website doesn't single out football.

The Federal Communications Commission repealed its sports blackout rules, which prohibited cable and satellite operators from airing any sports event that was blacked out on a local broadcast station.

posted by Etrigan at 04:12 PM on October 01, 2014

From what I've read, the NFL can (and does) still have contracts explicitly stating there are blackouts. It's just that it's not a required part of contracts now.

posted by jmd82 at 09:21 PM on October 01, 2014

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