BREAKING NEWS; FCC Votes Out Blackout Ban For All Sports.

The tide seems to be turning against the NFL.

Politico is reporting that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted unanimously 5-o to lift the Blackout rule, which allowed the NFL to restrict broadcasting of games to cable and satellite companies if the game did not sell enough tickets locally. The NFL for years now have stated this rule ensures that there will be robust ticket sales, but many federal authorities felt it simply hurt football fans everywhere.

“It’s a simple fact, the federal government should not be party to sports teams keeping their fans from viewing the games — period,” said Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “For 40 years these teams have hidden behind a rule of the FCC. No more. Everyone needs to be aware of who allows blackouts to exist, and it is not the Federal Communications Commission.”

The way an NFL blackout works is this; if a game has sold out 72 hours or more before the game is played, the local stations within a 75 mile radius will broadcast the game. If the game is close to sold out by 72 hours of game start, the home team can request a time extension to try to sell enough tickets. If a time extension is not approved, and the team did not sell enough tickets, the NFL blocks the local stations from broadcasting the home team’s games.

In 2012, the NFL considered 85 percent of ticket sales as a sellout.

This had, in the past, let to mass purchases of tickets, companies or corporations buying blocks of tickets to lift the blackout, However, Edward Wyatt of the New York Times reports that blackouts were becoming antiquated anyway.

“Now, a majority of teams’ revenue comes from television rights, and barely a handful of games are blacked out each season, or even threatened with a blackout. In 2013, two of the N.F.L.’s 256 regular-season games were blacked out. In 2011, 16 games were blacked out locally, all of them happening in one of four cities: Buffalo, Cincinnati, San Diego and Tampa Bay.”

Though this vote applies to all professional sports it will affect the NFL the most, for they used it the most often and fought for the rule the hardest.

“We’ll review the FCC’s decision on the blackout rule, which has worked for decades to make our games available,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement Monday ahead of the vote. “With or without the rule, the league will continue to work to find new ways to bring more people to the game, and bring the game to more people.”

The Bleacher Report is reporting since the FCC has moved out of the way the focus now shifts to the NFL, which will have to decide how to proceed without a federal regulation to fall back on for support. It won’t be clear how a change would impact overall ticket sales until it’s put in place.