2010-11 NFL Blackout Thread

[KeithE4]

Way back when, during the era when the Patriots really sucked and had trouble even selling out games against the Jets, if I recall correctly, many games were blacked out on their Boston station, WBZ-TV, then channel 4. I live north of Boston, where WCSH-TV, then channel 6, could be viewed if you pointed a rooftop antenna toward Maine. Sure enough, I noticed a house nearby with a standard rooftop antenna on a rotator, and it seemed as though it was pointed towards Maine every Sunday, but only on Sundays...the rest of the week, it was pointed toward Boston (I guess there was nothing on the NH stations, then and now, on channels 9 and 11.)

Before the arrival of Walter Payton and the rest of the eventual Super Bowl XX team, Chicagoans did the same thing since the Bears were blacked out fairly often in the early-mid '70s. Many bars and quite a few homes had large UHF antennas with rotators so they could get the Bears on WIFR-TV Rockford or WSBT-TV South Bend, both outside the 75-mile blackout zone.

 

[ixnay]

The Lions were hardly ever on local television when I lived in the Detroit area.
At the time they were playing in the Pontiac Silverdome, which held over 80,000 for football.
It was nearly impossible to sell that many tickets for a perennially last-place team.

Pontiac is on the northern fringe of metro Detroit, which probably didn't help either.

ixnay

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I can't remember the last time the Browns were blacked out, either before the Baltimore move or after their return in 1999.

There was a pre-season game that was closed to being blacked out this year, but it eventually aired.

 

[ShawnHill1]

I can't remember the last time the Browns were blacked out, either before the Baltimore move or after their return in 1999.

There was a pre-season game that was closed to being blacked out this year, but it eventually aired.

If I remember right, the original Browns had their final home game (vs. arch-rival Cincinnati) blacked out in northeast Ohio. In the weeks before move was made official, nearly all of the Browns' corporate sponsors pulled out of their agreements, and signage placards where left bare all around old Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Thus no corporate support buying any extra tickets to prevent the blackout.

 

[DToTheJ]

Was in the Tampa area for a few days this week. (Hence the lack of new threads on this board during the last 96 hours. ;D )

Anyway, can you believe that Fox 13 in Tampa - with well over a week to go before the Buccaneers' next home game - is already telling viewers to buy tickets and prevent a blackout. The Bucs haven't even played their next (road) game yet, and Fox 13 is pleading for viewers to buy tickets.

I will say this: The Bucs' next home opponent is the division-leading Falcons. How that game is NOT sold out at Raymond James Stadium will be a mystery.