Slashdot Mirror
NFL Fights To Save TV Blackout Rule Despite $9 Billion Revenue
An anonymous reader writes with word of new movement on an old front: namely, the rule that makes it hard for sports fans to see coverage of local teams. The 39-year-old blackout rule basically "prevents games from being televised locally when tickets remain unsold." The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in response to a 2011 petition by consumers, has decided to consider abolishing this rule. The National Football League (NFL) has of course objected, claiming that the rule allows it to keep airing their games on free TV. If that were to change and they would have to move to cable, they argue, the "result would represent a substantial loss of consumer welfare." In their petition to the FCC, consumers point out that the NFL charges "exorbitant prices for tickets" which results in lower attendance. The blackout rule, they claim, therefore punishes fans by preventing them from watching the game if the NFL can't sell enough stadium tickets. NFL yearly profits reportedly number in the billions. Even if the FCC supports the petition, however, sports leagues can and probably will privately negotiate blackouts to boost their revenue.
"NFL charges exorbitant prices for tickets" ...
" punishes fans by preventing them from watching the game if the NFL can't sell enough stadium tickets"
"NFL yearly profits reportedly number in the billions.".
Sounds like the obvious answer is "Then don't watch it."
But I can see this article isn't about rationality, but about "I want to watch it" and "I want it to be free" and "I want it available under my terms".
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
FCC should pull the rule to let supply and demand work it out.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
That's the main problem you have there. At home, on the screen, you simply and plainly get the better experience. Now, I'm no expert on sports, but it doesn't take an avid watcher to notice the immediate advantage of sitting at home over going to the game.
1. Cheap drink & snacks. No need to explain. You understand it even if you don't care about sports, you have the same deal with movies.
2. Better view. Even if you have a front row seat right at the 50 yards sideline, you can't compete with a dozen cameras showing the game from every possible angle. You get an overview to see how the play unfolded, you get a closeup of the catch, hell, even the referees don't have that kind of luxury overview you get on TV.
3. No hassle getting to or from the game.
4. If the game stinks, just flip over to some movie and keep flipping back now and then to see whether it improves.
5. And of course you can do something while watching your game on TV. Personally I can't really concentrate on watching something if it's fractured like football or, worse, baseball, where moments of action are interrupted by long times of boredom for too long without getting incredibly bored.
So, tell me again, why the fuck should I go to the stadium, pay a fortune for a ticket where I'll then sit next to Bob who had onions for lunch, somewhere about a mile from the field where the players look like they are sprites of a badly done C64 game?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If one were to, you know, look at FCC's Rules on Sports Blackouts, you'd notice that basically the only blackouts the FCC requires involving sports involve exclusive broadcast rights on broadcast TV requiring blackouts on cable/satellite (and even then:
)
The short and long of it is that (1) the NFL has cornered the market on getting local governments to back stadium construction through loans and tax breaks and (2) cornered the market on exclusive broadcasting rights to effectively ban local broadcasts to allow ridiculous ticket prices for anyone local to actually watch the game--this latter part, btw, is likely what the local government wants anyways as it removes a lot of the plebs and grants a higher tax revenue when the tax breaks end (or are reduced).
Going and whining to the FCC as if they're responsible entirely misses the point except in so far as the FCC may have some sort of obligation to demand that public broadcasts be used to allow local people to watch games they're effectively subsidizing in multiple ways (tax breaks for the stadium and broadcast rights for the tv stations). Yet, I think that too much of a stretch, personally, given that it's quite clear that the FCC's job is not to be some sort of universal enforcer on tv broadcasters. This, like the issue with Verizon's throttling, are issues the FTC should be taken to task to deal with as clearly the real issue in both cases are ones of fair trade.
I happen to agree with you. We're downright illogical about our sports, but given the number of government built stadiums out there that sports teams normally get dedicated access to for next to nothing, it's not out of line to expect some concessions.
I don't read AC A human right
this and the fact that the NFL is a registered non-profit organization. if they make $9b and block the broke local fans to try and shake out more money from those who help pay for the venue then i say to hell with that
All Saturday 3pm kick off (the historical standard time for games to be played) football games in the Premier League are not allowed (at all) to be shown live on ANY UK TV channel. I presume this is also to protect ticket sales at the clubs. A slight difference is that there is no live football from the Premier League on free TV at all.
People just get around this by watching an internet stream, usually from a US or Arab sports channel network, or going to an enterprising pub that shows such a stream or foreign satellite channel (very dodgy legally).
A lot of teams in the Premier League make a loss, so although the Premier League itself makes a profit, the money from ticket sales does directly affect each club. The smaller clubs rarely sell out, unless they are playing a big team.
I might never stop laughing.
I fail to see how this is relevant to the /. audience or how this matters in any meaningful way. It is professional sports after all...quite possibly one to the most useless aspects of our culture.
If I don't get the games on terms I want, then I'll go do something else, watch movies on Netflix or play video games and your advertisers can go pound sand. What a bunch of arrogant, self-entitled bastards. Fuck you and the corporate jet you rode into town on.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Boycott them. But them when we are talking about religion and sports people tend to be irracional about it.
Local team games are always broadcast OTA when they are on NFL Network or ESPN. IIRC it's a FCC rule that they have to do it.
Of course that has little to do with the public funding of private enterprises that are wildly profitable and make millions of dollars. I enjoy watching football, but there are many better things to spend public money on. Roads, bridges, schools, universities, libraries, etc. are all for more generally useful than a stadium that stays vacant the majority of the year.
I had season tickets years ago. Our seats were in the nosebleed section and the cost was pretty high. We met some really great people and started parking in the same area every week, had a pre and post game party. Now a season ticket for the San Diego Chargers is $1100.00. Or sit in the cheap seats to watch a losing team for $50.00 or $75.00.Think end zone. Parking is $25.00. Food and beverages? What is the cost of four hot dogs or what you order and beverages at your sports place? . http://www.chargers.com/ticket...
America has been consistently electing politicians who promise to cut taxes. And they have been dutifully cutting the taxes for the richest people (and corporations which are people). But corporations are special citizens who can claim a non-profit status and exempt themselves from taxation. It is very expensive to create a new people-citizen. But corporate citizen is just a 25$ filing fee, no nine month waiting period, no active cooperation between two different people required. Corporation-people don't go to jail. They can be killed when it is suitable without any penalty. But corporation-people can be enslaved by other corporation-people and people-people. Corporation-people can have religious beliefs when it is profitable to have them. But they don't have religious responsibilities .
Don't blame the politicians. Blame ourselves, collectively.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You actually have a good point. If someone wants to hire me, they can pay my price, or I can choose not to work for them. If I don't want to pay for NFL tickets, or NFL Network, I can simply choose not to do so. I have no right to force them to work at a price I set.
That said, the FCC doesn't need to enforce this rule. The NFL can negotiate with the teams and the TV stations. The government doesn't need to do the NFL' s dirty work for them.
Lao Tzu, who seems to have a line for every human inanity compressed into his 81 little poems, said (in my translation):
"There is no greater disaster, no blinder ignorance
than not knowing when you have enough."
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
Why is the NFL permitted to operate as non-profit when it controls so much of the experience and generates so much revenue?
That alone should get this rule changed.
And as others have pointed out, tax payers build the stadiums for these teams, so we should be able to watch them.
BTW - I am not a sports fan. I watch the super bowl only, and even then, I channel surf.
Who cares about this stuff anyway?
So just stop watching it, then.
Sure, one can stop watching NFL football. But how would someone go about subscribing to MSNBC, Fox News, or any other cable TV channel without paying for ESPN and Monday Night Football? Or is this an issue over which people are expected to give up multichannel subscription television entirely?
The team/league/player revenue split is different between televised games and game tickets. I'd guess the team owners want to push to fill the stadium because of the revenue. They get game broadcast revenues either way since their game will probably broadcast outside the local area even if it isn't a sellout
But why does every pro football player have to play ticket-selling (i.e. commercial) matches under the umbrella of the NFL?
It doesn't. The United States Football League, a new minor league of professional American football, is scheduled to kick off in 2015. Ability to start your own league is a big difference between football and so-called e-sports, as unlike a video game publisher, the NFL lacks legal power to shut down a competing league.
The NFL doesn't make money. The team makes money. The NFL is just an administrative association to which the teams belong.
NFL is a non-profit organization. It does not make any profit. [...] IRS will not get a dime.
As I understand it, the NFL's not-profit goes straight back to the teams. The IRS sees the NFL's not-profit when each team pays income tax on its own profit.
"result would represent a substantial loss of consumer welfare."
Welfare is the provision of a minimal level of well-being and social support for all citizens. This sounds like they're threatening our lowest basic levels of well-being.
Sounds like the NFL needs to be classified as a terrorist organization.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
.
Then there is the entire health problem with all the head injuries.
It really makes me wonder why the NFL is so pervasive in our society.
"claiming that the rule allows it to keep airing their games on free TV"
Last time I checked, the TV stations have to pay a hefty fee in order to have the privilege of broadcast sporting events.
This whole thing smacks of "I need more money".
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
When my cableco hit me for a $5 per month "sports programming fee", or $60.00 per year, my response was to snip the cable cord-don't miss cable, with endless reality and infomercials, at all. Sports is the only thing they really have left, isn't it ?
I live in the SanFrancisco area, home to two teams (niners and raiders)... and the blackout rules are killing me...
*There's two primary time slots on Sundays when the majority of teams play (not including the Sunday night game).
*The NFL will never schedule both teams to play at the same time.
*If the game isn't sold out, it's not televised.
*The NFL will not allow another game to be shown on TV if a local game is blacked out.
If I lived in Nebraska, I would have the option of watching four games (2 early games and 2 later games). However, I've had more than enough Sunday's whereby both the niners and the raiders didn't sell enough tickets and thus BOTH slots were blacked out.
I'm not going to watch a game at the Oakland Colesium and having visited the new Levis Stadium, I won't be going there either (transportation is a disaster). They'd get my advertising dollars by watching them on TV tho.
So the consumers love their team so much they always want to watch the team play. They just don't want to pay for tickets or pay for the TV channel to watch.
Maybe it is time for the major league sports teams to just give in and make watching their games completely free and supported by advertising. I mean we're pretty far along already. Adverts on the screen all the time, swooshing adverts on the screen intermittently, adverts between plays, commercials, logos all over the field, etc.
Let's just for for the gusto... "Frito Lay presents the snapping the ball the quarterback, as he fades back in the team's signature Cadillac move. He Snickers tosses the ball to the wide receiver who's catch is sponsored by Taco Bell and runs to the Minute Maid mid-field where he's taken down by Office Max's linebacker.
Look.. the teams in cities and states have 0 to do with the city or state any more, the players are from all over the world, training camps are in another part of the county and they'd relocate for a deal that made them 2% more money. The stadiums are owned by the team and they sell the naming rights to the highest bidder.
Just go full out commercial with this stupid professional games stuff.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I'm not backing the NFL here, but this blackout rule doesn't bother me much and it has at least some basis in reality and fairness: to have a full stadium experience (I won't argue whether that's really worth it these days). IIRC, the doesn't kick in until 72 hours before kickoff, it only applies to networks within 75 miles and it only applies to local broadcast/cable TV (you still get the game on Sunday Ticket). And, in most cases, local businesses will buy up the unused tickets to give to charity, and the NFL relents, and the whole issue is moot.
I'm far more pissed with the blackout rules for MLB. I live in Las Vegas, I have the MLB.TV package, and I am blacked out from at least 6 teams (Dodgers, Angels, D-Backs, Padres, A's, Giants). None of those teams are within 300 miles of me, so I'm not driving to home games. And yet, I can't watch any of those teams, because (in theory) I should have access to those teams from my local cable network. But the cable cos and the networks like to bitch about retransmission fees and so I haven't seen the Dodgers all year.
The REALLY stupid blackout rule: Hawaii is blacked out from the Giants & A's. HAWAII !!!! I know there's kayaks in McCovey Cove every game, but I have yet to see any Polynesian catamarans.
If sport exhibition is a business, then I can't see why leagues in other sports wouldn't be be considered "business leagues", so long as all the "profit" goes back to the teams and is declared on the teams' respective tax returns.
Sports is the only thing they really have left, isn't it ?
That and live political talk shows, such as MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, depending on which way you lean. And a lot of channels' web sites offer streaming but require viewers to log in with a name and password issued by a participating cable or satellite TV provider.
"Even if the FCC supports the petition, however, sports leagues can and probably will privately negotiate blackouts to boost their revenue."
That would be illegal, Poindexter. Corporations cannot collude to control prices.
.
Personally, I am a free market person. If fans weren't so rabidly willing to pay the OBSCENE ticket prices, the market would correct downward. However, it would seem that the market is willing to support these OBSCENE ticket prices, so game on!!
yes, a lot of teams have put their ticket prices in the stratosphere and have seen waiting lists vanish and in some cases, fail to sell tickets (season or otherwise). When the empty seats are not a large number the team ownership will often "buy" the surplus to avoid the blackout.
But getting rid of the black out could be even worse on revenues. At say 80K seats per game X 10 games, thats 800K tickets at .. $100 per (yes some are more, some may be less) thats $80 million in revenue. Remember that $9B of TV revenue is distributed across 32 teams, about $280M each. So that original $80M in ticket revenue is a big chunk of total team revenue. If a large % of attendees now decide to save money and just watch at home, demand plummets and with it revenue (either through decreased sales or sales at much lower price). If the NFL goes cable only you can fully assume your cable bill will rise. And those who do not use cable (ie, OTA only) will suffer.
Very much an exercise in tipping points.
Its business. Not Sport. Business. Would be interesting to consider the sum of salaries and expenses to the revenue derived from tickets and broadcast.
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
My provider has a 'broadcast only' option. I thought most did, or were even required to.
True, but there's someone in my family sample willing to pay $30 per month extra for the channels that she can't get on "limited basic". She watches PBS, PBS Create, the other locals, C-SPAN, C-SPAN2, C-SPAN3, and MSNBC. And today I learned that she doesn't feel ready to sit down and learn to use XFINITY On Demand either; she prefers to watch things as they air.
fox but not MSNBC
Which isn't helpful for someone who explicitly wants to watch the Democrat Channel because the Republican Channel nauseates her.
no big deal, there's this thing called the internet for news.
Which isn't helpful for someone who prefers to watch from a recliner and listen while doing housework instead of reading while seated in front of her laptop.
I just found out that my provider (TWC) includes the local broadcasts (and a few more, like TBS) even though I have NO TV service from them, just standard internet. Not sure how much more is there, I only found out when troubleshooting my internet connection.
Most of the major news sites now have an autoplaying video on almost every story. Once they add the playlist, it'll be just like a TV channel, and just as useless.