Buffalo Bills Games No Longer Blacked Out

May 8, 2014; New York, NY, USA; A general view of a helmet and NFL shield logo before the start of the 2014 NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall. Mandatory Credit: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

Well, good news Bills fans, the FCC unanimously voted yesterday that they would be stopping the blacking out of games, where the home team does not sell the required amount of tickets to allow for the televised broadcast of the game, within the regional area.

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This is a plus for fans that tend to get games blacked out because of lack of fan support at the stadium, and it could hurt the home team a bit because there is no incentive now to see the game. When it is cold outside and you really don’t want to weather the storm, you can sit in you warm house and still catch the game and not worry if it will be blacked out or not.

"“This is a historic day for sports fans,” Sports Fans Coalition chairman David Goodriend said in a release. “Since 1975, the federal government has propped up the NFL’s obnoxious practice of blacking out a game from local TV if the stadium did not sell out. Today’s FCC action makes clear: if leagues want to mistreat fans, they will have to do so without Uncle Sam’s help.” – Syracuse.com"

This may not entirely end the blackouts though. The NFL has it’s own policies in place that basically state that the NFL broadcast regulations prohibits and NFL game to be aired if it is not sold out within a radius of 75 miles. The NFL and television networks can agree to uphold the decision to pout games, but they are not required to by FCC regulations now.

The blackouts have cause Bills fans to miss 20 games since the 2000 season, so it does help us out a little bit.

Do we think that the local networks will agree with the NFL to uphold their decision to blackout any games that are not sold out?

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