The NFL’s Other Problem: Fake Fans Lobbying for the Blackout

“I write as a football fan,” read the letter to the Federal Communications Commission, “to strongly urge you to maintain the FCC’s current broadcast rules.” There may have been thousands of bogus, identically worded letters generated on the National Football League’s behalf, posted in 2014 to the FCC’s website from scores of “fans." These supposed fans opposed an FCC move to repeal the sports blackout rule, a rule that banned cable and satellite providers from showing home games that weren’t sold out when the NFL blocked local TV broadcasts of those games. The decades-old blackout rule aimed to get people to buy tickets. A group called the Sports Fans Coalition and cable and satellite providers were lobbying the FCC to dump it. About 21,000 identical letters went to the agency urging it to preserve the rule, saying: “The NFL, my local community and fans like me all win when home games are sold out.” The Wall Street Journal sent survey invitations to 13,000 email addresses on those letters. Of the 152 who responded, 69% said they hadn’t submitted the comments attributed to them. At that rate, roughly 14,500 would be phony.

FCC commissioners jettisoned the blackout rule in 2014 by a 5-0 vote. The NFL dropped its own blackout policy in 2015. Submitting fraudulent statements or representations to the federal government is a felony.