FCC urged to end sports blackout rule

WASHINGTON — Most people weighing in on a sports blackout rule are urging the Federal Communications Commission to scrap it.

Monday is the deadline for public comments on a petition by the Sports Fans Coalition to rescind the rule, which bars cable and satellite systems from carrying a sporting event that is blacked out on local broadcast television stations. The rule has effectively reinforced the NFL's own policy, which blacks out games in home markets that aren't sold out 72 hours ahead of time.

The agency has received about 100 comments, and an overwhelming majority favors the petition. Many argue that taxpayers have helped pay for the stadiums and should not have their home games blacked out.

Several comments came from fans of the Buffalo Bills, who had three of their seven games in Buffalo blacked out last season.

Patricia Rebmann of Gowanda, N.Y., complained that residents there help pay for maintaining the stadium through taxes but often cannot watch the home games on TV. Rebmann said that she and her husband are senior citizens and find it nearly impossible to attend games with her husband's physical condition.

"Please, please, please do whatever it takes to lift the NFL's blackout rule so we can reap a few hours of entertainment for our tax dollars," she wrote.

Brandon Bulkley, a self-described Kansas City Chiefs fan from Roeland Park, Kan., urged the FCC to "side with the little man for once, because without us there would be no money-making Goliath called the NFL."

One of the few people in support of the blackout rule, Peter A. Nigro, urged that the cutoff for blackouts be reduced from 72 hours to 48 or 24.

"I think without a blackout rule of some kind ... that stadium attendance would be affected somewhat by it," he wrote.

In a filing with the FCC Monday, the Sports Fan Coalition and other groups called the sports blackout rule "a regulatory backstop to an obnoxious and outdated league policy ... At a time of persistently high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and consumer uncertainty, the sports blackout rule supports blatantly anti-fan, anti-consumer behavior by professional sports leagues."

The Sports Fan Coalition receives money from Verizon, which provides pay TV, and has received funding from Time Warner Cable in the past, but insists it is "driven by fans."