With soft ticket sales, NFL teams prepare for TV blackouts

 

In 2008 NFL teams had nine games blacked out from their local markets. These nine blackouts were contained to three pretty bad Football teams; the Detroit Lions, Oakland Raiders, and St. Louis Rams. Now in a bad economy, the NFL and its teams are preparing to have many games blacked out from local markets.

In an owner meeting in late August the NFL showed the owners a list of 12 teams that will likely face local TV blackout in 2009. The NFL rules state that if a team cannot sell out 72 hours before the start of a game then it is blacked out on TV within 75 miles of the home stadium. Teams are able to get one 24 extension if they can prove that they are close to selling out.

The 2008 TV blackouts all make a lot of sense, what fans would want to pay top dollar to see their team get their buts kicked. According to Team Marketing Report the average 2008 NFL ticket ran $72.20. For the three teams suffering 2008 blackouts their average ticket was; Detroit Lions $66.38, Oakland Raiders, $62.23, and St. Louis Rams $68.28.

It is no great leap of logic to understand why NFL fans would not want to pay that kind of money to see a bad football team, especially for the Lions who failed to win a single game. In fact 5 of the 9 2008 TV blackouts where Lions home games.

To combat this 24 NFL teams did not increase their ticket prices for 2009, but that may not be enough. Only 12 teams have sold out their inventory of 2009 tickets, and most of those teams are stalwarts of the NFL who have very loyal fan bases. Team such as the Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, New York Giants, and Washington Redskins all have sold out for the coming NFL season.

The news is not as good for teams such as the Jacksonville Jaguars, and San Diego Chargers. The Jaguars are facing the grim reality that all their 8 2009 home games will be blacked out from local TV. Since North Florida has been devastated by the housing crunch Jaguars officials face an uphill battle to draw fans to their games.

The Chargers who must battle the local weather as much as anything else are not confident they can sell out even though they are the defending AFC West Champions and feature Ladainian Tomlinson one of the most popular players in the game today.

The Chargers had their final pre-season game blacked out from local TV last Friday, and that may be an indication of things to come. In all the NFL expects 10-12 teams to suffer in a down economy and have a portion of their home games blacked out on local TV.