With the hapless Lions coming to town on Sunday, let’s consider a plea from the Detroit Free Press to have the NFL knock-out its blackout rules for home games. Columnist Drew Sharp:
The Lions can’t win. They can’t sell out their home games. They can’t get on local television. They can’t excite those who bother showing up at Ford Field.
The threat of a blackout ordinarily spurs home ticket sales. But with escalating ticket prices and a declining economy, it often becomes a choice between buying two Lions tickets or paying the gas bill.
The NFL should institute a one-year moratorium on local television blackouts. Give the fans a break from the realities of the world that are crashing down on them. … Detroit deserves a special exemption. The NFL waived its blackout policy for the New Orleans Saints three years ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
So Detroit right now is in the same situation as NOLA after Katrina? Well, hell man forget about football, let’s evacuate Detroit! Send in the Army! Probably should have happened years ago, before Mayor Kwame drove a stake in the city. The distinction is that NOLA got hit by a natural disaster and Detroit’s dire straits are wholly man-made. A rolling disregard for economic reality that extends back decades.
But if economic discomfort is a reason for changing the NFL’s TV rules, why shouldn’t Charlotte get relief too? No spot outside of midtown Manhattan has seen more economic turmoil as a result of the great deleveraging of 2008 than Uptown Charlotte. Give us our Panthers on free TV!
The NFL is not buying such special pleading, noting that the blackout policy is designed to protect ticket sales. Period. Sad that right now a football league is more dependable and level-headed than the entire federal government.
