Debate Over TV Sports Blackouts

A quintet of senators has told the Federal Communications Commission it is time for the FCC to try and end sports blackouts. "We believe it is time for the NFL's blackout policy to end," said Sens Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in a letter to the FCC. They also took aim at the "byzantine" restrictions on MLB games that result in blackouts.

The NFL says that lifting the FCC's sports blackout rule sits alongside the syndicated exclusivity and network nonduplication rules as key protections for contractual distribution rights for broadcasters. The league pointed out that it was the only sports league where all of a team's local games were available with the exception of what it said was the relatively rare blackout -- 16 games out of 256 regular season games. The league summarized its points succinctly. It said that the blackout rule is in the public interest because it supports broadcast TV in general and the broad distribution of games -- what the FCC has called must-have programming -- via free over-the-air TV; that the same result could not be practically achieved through private contract; that Congress in the sports Broadcasting Act said promoting attendance at the game helps the sport and fans, and that repeal of the FCC's blackout rule would not end blackouts.

The National Association of Broadcasters says that lifting the FCC's sports blackout rule would harm localism and hasten the migration of sports programming from broadcast to cable. NAB says that the reason it is opposing lifting the ban is because it prevents pay-TV operators from circumventing exclusivity agreements -- it would allow cable ops to import a distant signal version of the game into markets where the home game was blacked out due to standing NFL contracts, which would continue to be in force, preventing broadcasters from showing the games to their over-the-air subscribers.