It doesn’t take a Monday morning quarterback to figure out how badly the National Football League fumbles when it threatens to keep the Seahawks off local TV.
That there’s little logic to the business of professional sports is news to no one. But the NFL’s absurd blackout policy turns logic completely on its head. The league bars local TV coverage of home games if all the seats aren’t sold 72 hours before kickoff. This week, two of the team’s sponsors had to buy up blocks of tickets to get the blackout lifted, but fans had no idea until Friday afternoon whether the game would be televised. That makes it kind of hard to plan a football get-together.
In its short-sightedness — some would call it blindness — the NFL applies the blackout rule across the board, regardless of local circumstances.
In the case of the Seahawks, those circumstances are key. Here you have a team that basked in popularity from its birth in 1976 until its second owner, Ken Behring, ran it into the ground and tried to move it to Southern California. It takes awhile for a fan base to recover from such a jilting, and it has also taken time for the team to rebound on the field.
When the team finally becomes competitive, the obvious move is to get it as much exposure as possible. Game coverage amounts to a three-hour infomercial for the team, but the incredibly short-sighted NFL will have none of it unless there’s a fanny in every seat. There was no local TV audience to watch the Seahawks win their home opener two weeks ago. Nice start, but who noticed?
NFL tickets aren’t cheap, and in this economy, it’s only prudent for most fans to balk at the price. If you keep the team under wraps, who will be around to fill those pricey seats when the economy finally recovers? Keeping the team off local TV just exacerbates the problem. And don’t forget: the public ponied up some $300 million to build Seahawks Stadium. Local TV coverage of games ought to be part of the return.
For an example of how to promote a team, just look to the Mariners. Virtually all of their games — home and away — are televised, and they’re second in the American League in home attendance. Exposure creates interest, which creates paying customers.
Yet the NFL will continue to hold the blackout over fans’ heads like a dark cloud — a cloud that threatens to rain on the Seahawks’ parade.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
