NFL Suspends TV Blackout Rule, Jags-Bills in London Will Be Streamed Online Only

The NFL owners are meeting in Arizona this week and they’ve voted to suspend the oft-archaic TV blackout rule. The rule states teams need to sell at least 85 percent of their tickets or else the game will be blacked out locally on television. In 2014 zero games were blacked out locally. There was likely some Congressional and FCC pressure on the NFL to adopt this policy.

This is one of those rules that probably made sense in the 1950s or 60s when NFL team revenue was tied directly to ticket sales, but isn’t really applicable in 2015 with so much money coming from TV. Nowadays everything the NFL does seems to be for television, with Thursday night game the latest example.

How much this means for the NFL in-game “experience” remains to be seen — jeans in the poolside cabana notwitstanding. Going to games seems less vital now, especially with so many fans wrapped up with second-by-second fantasy game updates. Suspending the blackout rule might impact ticket sales, but let’s guess it will be minimal.

Much more interesting is that at the same time as the blackout rule suspension is a brief report from The Wall Street Journal that the Week 7 game between the Jaguars and Bills in London will only be available via an online streaming service to be determined.

"For this upcoming season’s Jacksonville Jaguars-Buffalo Bills game in Week 7, the NFL will sell the rights to a digital distribution company, be it YouTube, Facebook or another company. The game will start at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time and will be played in London. The game will be broadcast locally on over-the-air networks in the home markets of Jacksonville and Buffalo. It is unclear when bids will be submitted. The game won’t be on the DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket service, which broadcasts all games nationally."

Obviously the NFL will be able to reach more fans online through streaming than they can inside their 32 stadiums on any given Sunday. As we know, if the NFL can find a way to monetize something — it will. The bidding for this lone game should be fascinating and a coup for whichever streaming service lands it. As we know, live sports remains premium content for providers.

This is mostly minutiae, but NFL fans are used to watching every game if they pay for the Ticket. It’s a total luxury and falls probably about 472,328th on a list of life’s inconveniences, but come Oct. 25 when the Bills and Jags are about to kick off at Wembley Stadium you know some fans are going to be pissed that the only way to legally watch the game is on Apple TV or another streaming service to which they might not already subscribe.