Forces are coalescing that would challenge the Federal Communications Commission’s Blackout Rule, which removes NFL football games from local television stations that are within a 75-mile radius of the city in which the game is played if the contest isn’t sold out 72 hours before kickoff.
On Nov. 18, Florida Sen. Mike Fasano (R-New Port Richey) introduced a bill that would hold NFL owners, who receive public subsidies, accountable if they adhere to the rule.
“At the minimum, we should be telling these sports franchises around the state that get these tax breaks, these tax credits from the taxpayers of Florida, that any year there’s a blackout, you won’t get those tax credits,” Fasano told a Florida television station. “You won’t get those tax credits any longer. The taxpayer should be able to see their home team when they’re the ones that are building those stadiums and providing any type of a tax credit to a sports franchise in the state of Florida.”
The rule in question has been in place for decades. And while team owners or sponsors can buy up the unsold tickets to avoid the blackout, that practice is the exception rather than the rule.
Enter Fasano and SB 836, which would require Florida’s NFL teams, the Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to televise all home games since they receive public tax dollars.
There are other elements pushing for an end to the rule as well.
Sports Fans Coalition, which bills itself as the largest nonprofit fan advocacy organization in the country, and four other national consumer advocacy groups have filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission, asking the agency to end the rule. Those groups include the National Consumer League, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, and the League of Fans.
“This is the biggest organized effort in decades to put an end to the federal government’s support for anti-consumer blackouts,” Sports Fans Coalition Executive Director Brian Frederick said in a statement. “It is ridiculous that the leagues continue to black out games from their own fans after taking in massive public subsidies, during such difficult economic times, and even more ridiculous that the federal government props up this practice through the Sports Blackout Rule.”
The rule was adopted in 1975, reportedly without any mandate from Congress at the request of sports leagues and broadcasters who claimed that such a rule was necessary to keep games on broadcast television.
“It is absurd that the government still props up the sports leagues with an outdated and unnecessary rule written four decades ago,” Frederick said. “The FCC’s blackout rule simply helps to perpetuate the anti-consumer practice of withholding sporting events from fans who cannot afford tickets to games, even when those fans helped to subsidize sports through public funding, laws, and regulations.”
