WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins (NY-26) sent a bipartisan letter to Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Chairman Thomas Wheeler urging the FCC to end the Sports Blackout Rule, a 1970s-era regulation which allows the NFL to black out broadcasts of a local sports game when the game does not meet a sellout threshold. FCC will hold a vote on ending this rule at its upcoming September 30th meeting. The letter was signed by a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators including Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Tom Harkin (D-IA).

“It’s time for the FCC to get off the sidelines and end this outdated policy,” Brown said. “This antiquated rule is unfair to teams, fans, and taxpayers alike. Fans' ability to support their local team should not depend on ticket sales. We know that the construction and upkeep of stadium is often funded through tax dollars, yet often times these same fans can’t event support their home team. Enough is enough.”

The NFL is the world’s most profitable sports league. Despite this, blackouts have kept fans in Ohio, and across the country, from watching their home team. This is despite Paul Brown Stadium costing local taxpayers $450 million and the City of Cleveland being required to contribute $850,000 a year to the repair budget for FirstEnergy Stadium.

Since 2010, Brown has fought on behalf of fans and taxpayers to eliminate the FCC’s Sports Blackout Rule, a 1970s-era regulation which allows the NFL to black out broadcasts of a local sports game when the game does not meet a sellout threshold. In July 2012, Brown joined U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Congressman Brian Higgins (NH-27) in a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell urging the NFL to remove the financial penalty for teams that choose to air games that have not been sold out.

In December 2013, Brown applauded the unanimous decision by FCC commissioners to take steps toward repealing the outdated Sports Blackout Rule. The announcement followed a letter by Brown in November 2013 to FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler urging the Commission to reexamine the current rule.

The letter to FCC Commissioner can be viewed below:

September 10, 2014

 

Chairman Thomas Wheeler                                      

Federal Communications Commission                     

445 12th Street, SW                                    

Washington, DC 20554                                            

 

Dear Chairman Wheeler:

We applaud your decision to schedule a vote on eliminating the outdated and obsolete Sports Blackout Rule, during the September 30th meeting of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

As you know, on December 17, 2013 the FCC voted unanimously to propose the elimination of the 40-year old sports blackout rule and issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (MB Docket No. 12-3) the following day. During the public comment period, the FCC received hundreds of comments from elected officials, fans, economists, professional sports leagues, broadcasters, and cable and satellite TV providers. The comment period closed on February 24, 2014, and we believe the public record strongly supports the FCC moving forward with the elimination of the Blackout Rule.

We understand that you may have received comments asserting that blackouts are necessary to induce attendance at National Football League (NFL) games. The notion that the fear of a blackout compels fans to attend games is inconsistent with the experience in the communities we represent. To suggest that fans will attend a game only after they have been threatened with missing it sells the NFL game day experience short. Fans choose to attend NFL games not because they are submitting to coercion; they attend because viewing at home is no substitute for the game day experience in and around the stadium.

Other professional sports leagues recognize this reality. In a sworn deposition included on the record in the docket Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said, “[w]e don’t think home telecasts hurt attendance. In fact, if I may say, we telecast more games than ever before in our history, and our attendance the last 10 years has set a record. It’s the 10 greatest years in baseball history… I think home telecasts help attendance.” In another deposition on the record in the docket National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman said of using blackouts to compel attendance at NHL games, “it’s a policy that has been long discredited.” Indeed, the FCC itself noted in the NPRM that “changes in the sports industry in the last four decades have called into question whether the sports blackout rules remain necessary to ensure the overall availability of sports programming to the general public.” We believe they are not.

Fans in our communities support their football teams with their time, the purchase of merchandise and tickets, and through often significant expenditures of public funds to construct stadia or subsidize operations. It is wrong to threaten these taxpayers with blackouts. While the decision to end blackouts is ultimately up to the NFL and the television networks, Federal rules certainly should not encourage such an outdated and insulting policy. Accordingly, we commend your decision to add this item to the FCC’s September agenda, and we encourage all of your colleagues on the Commission to vote in favor of eliminating the rule.

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