There has been lots of discussion recently on the NFL television blackout policy that prohibits televising home games in the home market unless the game sells out 72 hours prior to kickoff.

Some, including Richard Sandomir of The New York Times, have suggested that in this time of economic crisis, when it appears that the number of sellouts will drop, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should end or suspend the blackout policy.

This is a reasonable sentiment, although one might question if offering more blood and circuses offers a viable solution to America’s economic problems, or if it suggests that the NFL should serve as one more version of the opium of the masses.

Rather than simply offering a temporary respite for the unemployed, now might be a good time to look at the history of the blackout, with a view toward ending this economic privilege enjoyed by the NFL by virtue of a combination of court decisions and legislation.

The relationship between the NFL and television goes back to the early days of television following World War II. A number of teams developed their own television arrangements, and some even had their own regional networks. These spotty operations came and went with uneven results.

The first major experiment with television came in Los Angeles, where the Rams allowed local television to broadcast all of its 1950 home games. Game sponsor Admiral Television agreed to make up any losses in home ticket sales. When attendance dropped by 110,000 from the previous year, Admiral had to produce $307,000. The following year, the Rams televised road games only; as a result, home attendance bounced back to 1949 levels.

With this graphic negative demonstration of the power of television, Commissioner Bert Bell moved in 1952 to centralize control of television contracts — televising games on a regional basis, while instituting a blackout of all home games within 75 miles of the team city. The Justice Department moved immediately to challenge the NFL’s actions. However, in 1953, a federal district judge ruled that the NFL constituted a “unique kind of business,” in which classic economic competition would destroy that business. The court upheld the blackout policy of home games and the territorial blackout which made the regional network solution possible.

At the beginning of the 1960s, under the leadership of the new commissioner, Pete Rozelle, the NFL, rather than individual teams, signed an exclusive TV contract with CBS. The court ruled that the pooling of contracts was an anti-trust violation. With a loss in the courts, the NFL turned to the executive and legislative branches for relief. With the strong support of the Kennedy White House and Congress, the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 was passed, authorizing home game blackouts as well as a league-wide television contract. This triumph of the NFL cartel led to even stronger advocacy of the free enterprise system by NFL owners.

This is where the policy stood through the 1960s and the years of warfare with the AFL, which, as a matter of interest, did not have a blackout rule on its telecasts. With the growing popularity of professional football, the merger of the two leagues, and the coming of the Super Bowl, the blackout would again become an issue. Repeated NFL game sellouts led to frustration for home fans who had to travel 75 miles to see their home team play at home — on a television away from home.

Stronger objections developed over the blackout of the Super Bowl. In Miami, local attorney and would-be political candidate Ellis Rubin campaigned to end the blackout rule. He took the NFL to court, arguing that the use of local taxpayer money to stage the Super Bowl should in fact give the local taxpayers the right to see the game for which they could not buy tickets.

In making this logical argument, Rubin was portrayed by the NFL as a local pest or worse, and in his growing arrogance, Commissioner Rozelle refused to even consider the matter. Then in the early 1970s, after George Allen arrived in Washington as the Redskins coach, elevating the team to the NFL’s upper ranks, Redskin popularity produced repeated home game sellouts. Both political and public Washington, including members of Congress acting with the full support of President Nixon, objected to the NFL blackout policy and forced a change in the blackout rule. Thus the legislative origins of the 72-hour rule.

Commissioner Rozelle made it sound as if the fabric of American civilization was on the line, but in the end the impact was exactly what it was expected to be. There was an increase in television ratings in home markets, a corresponding increase in advertising rates, and a long term increase in the size of TV contracts.

Until Thursday, the NFL refused to budge on its policy, and Goodell expressed his view that what he sees as the interest of the league is more important than the desires of the fans. Now the commissioner has made a modification to the system so slight it hardly seems worth mentioning. The NFL, in all the generosity one has come to expect from the League, will “allow” fans with broadband access in the blacked-out area to watch the game online, for 72 hours, beginning at midnight on the day of the game.

By this time, fans will know the score and have seen the highlights and presumably have little incentive to watch the big game on the small screen. What a magnanimous gesture this is, even though it could threaten the very existence of the National Football League.

It is time once again for Congressional action to curb the arrogance of the NFL.

The precedents for legislation are clear. It is time to end the blackout policy once and for all. A public that has been drained by tax subsidies for stadiums, often by extortion, and which continues to be milked by NFL owners, has an ownership right to the games played in those stadiums. The teams are also given any number of other tax breaks and subsidies in depreciation of players and facilities, and by the corporate NFL ticket and seat license buyers’ ability to write off those costs as business expenses on their taxes.

At every turn, the NFL is underwritten by both a willing and unwilling public, football fans or not. Television operates on the public airwaves, which should be protected by the FCC from this sort of exploitation. The arrogance of power and the glib indifference of the NFL commissioner should be used to bring a halt to these “sportsmen” who eat at the public trough, and then pretend that the public has played no role in the amassing of their fortunes.

The NFL should not be allowed the right to exclude the broadcast of their games on the public airwaves to a public that subsidies their existence. Enough already.

photo by ckelley/creative commons

Richard C. Crepeau is a history professor at the University of Central Florida. He is currently working on a history of the NFL.