With NFL TV numbers through the roof, what will become of the blackout policy?
Despite the NFL blacking out 26 regular season games in 2010, the league’s TV numbers were through the roof. The league can lay claim to over 200 million unique viewers, the 19 most watched programs of the fall season, and every Cable TV ratings record known to man.
These numbers give a justification to why ESPN is willing to lay down almost $2 billion dollars a year for Monday Night Football (along with various internet distribution rights.) The NFL is THE entertainment force in America. While the Super Bowl has always laid claim as America’s TV event, never before has a NFL regular season been watched as much as this one.
This brings me back to the first number I brought up. The NFL blacked out more games in 2010 than it had in any season in two decades. Six franchises had at least one home game blacked out because they didn’t sell out their general bowl, and several others needed multiple extensions to ensure their homes games were on TV.
In some ways, the NFL has been a victim of it’s own success. As TV broadcasters bring ever more HD cameras into stadiums, the experience of being at the game is being ever closer into the average family’s living room. Now that a run of the mill HDTV now costs the same price as a season ticket in most stadiums, nevermind other costs such as parking, food, and beer, and it is easy to see why more and more NFL fans are choosing to stay home.
Even in markets regularly lauded for their fans, such as Kansas City, are beginning to see the effects of a bad economy and cheaper alternatives will have on ticket sales. Even in New York, the Jets struggled to make sure all of the general bowl seats for their new stadium would be sold.
The national media closed it’s eyes, shouted “Lalalala”, and pretended that blackouts were solely a Jacksonville issue. Well, in a year when the Jaguars had all of their games on local TV, the NFL still blacked out over 10% of regular season games.
At some point, the NFL is going to have to look at it’s blackout policy and find some other means of determining if it’s games are on television. If the league also expands it’s Thursday Night Football package to a full season, the league could be bringing in as much as $10 billion annually just from television contracts. TV broadcasters won’t be happy that they won’t be able to show games in local markets.
With teams bringing in over $300 million from TV contracts, as well as unshared revenue such as club seats and luxury boxes, will the blackout rule go the way of the Dodo? Perhaps not totally, but the NFL has already begun to tie itself to television rather than ticket sales. At some point, TV will demand every game be on, regardless of ticket sales.
-Jonathan Loesche
