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Senators Threaten To Rescind NFL Antitrust Exemption
An anonymous reader writes In response to the FCC's discontinuation of rules that support the NFL's blackout policies, the NFL issued a statement indicating that it would nevertheless continue to enforce its blackout policies through its private contract negotiations with local networks. On Wednesday, however, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced a bill that would rescind the antitrust exemption that enables the NFL to demand blackouts in the first place and formally warned the NFL to abandon blackouts altogether. The antitrust exemption gives sports leagues "legal permission to conduct television-broadcast negotiations in a way that otherwise would have been price collusion" and further allowed the formation of the NFL from two separate leagues. Meanwhile, the NFL enjoys a specialized tax status and direct monetary support from taxpayers to build arenas and stadiums.
The point of the blackouts is to extort money from the fans for an overpriced live experience. If they really wanted to sell out every game, they should study basic economics and drop prices. They'll still make ridiculous amounts of money.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
You charge too much for tickets/parking/hot dogs/beer, people don't go see your games. Threatening to not allow fans who won't bend over and lube up see the game is IMHO seriously bad business practice. Want to entice fans to games? Don't charge $500 per game for a family to go.
// prefer watching it on TV
/// except for the damned commercials
//// then again, when I went to the game they had "commercial timeouts".
/ haven't been to a game in 15 years