FCC May Eventually Revisit Sports Blackout Rule, But TV Industry Not on Board Yet
The FCC may eventually revisit a four-decade-old-rule barring multichannel video programming distributors from carrying games that are blacked out by sports leagues on TV stations in markets where the games haven’t sold out. The commission doesn’t seem poised to act right away on a Friday petition from several nonprofit entities and some groups saying they represent fans. Because the petition is styled as a way to cut outdated mandates out of FCC regulations, the commission may eventually start a proceeding on sports blackout rules. MVPDs and TV stations haven’t backed the petition yet, in part because they're scared of the leverage the leagues have over them in giving them rights to carry the games, said members of a coalition of five groups that filed the petition (http://xrl.us/bmimyk).
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"They're scared to death, the sports leagues are very powerful” and “the last thing you want is to anger folks” in the sports industry if you're an MVPD or TV station, Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said. She hopes the petition will “kick-start things,” because if the commission starts a proceeding and seeks comment on the request, various telecom and media industries may weigh in. The coalition approached broadcasters about joining, but they demurred, said DBS lobbyist David Goodfriend of the Sports Fan Coalition, which started the petition effort. NAB has no position on the rule, and hasn’t taken a public stance before, a spokesman said. Spokesmen for the American Cable Association and NCTA declined to comment.
The FCC, in delivering on the administration’s goal of nixing outdated rules, may pay keen interest to the petition, and seek public comment on it, said Sohn and Goodfriend. “This one falls squarely into that wheelhouse” of that goal, said Sohn. Unlike the fairness doctrine, which the FCC eliminated from its books recently, “there are some very powerful interests who want to keep these rules,” Sohn said. “It’s once again going to come down to whether the chairman is willing to go up against some very powerful interests,” she said of Julius Genachowski. “It falls squarely within the lines and what the president wants to do to get rid of obsolete regulation."
The NFL was singled out for scrutiny in the petition, and its blackout policy bars any game being shown on TV if the game venue hasn’t sold out 72 hours before game day. There were 26 blackouts last season, 22 the previous season and at least seven so far this year, the petition said. “The policy has been successful in striking a balance between encouraging fans to attend games and allowing the games to continue to be broadcast on free” TV, an NFL spokesman said. “The NFL is the only sports league that broadcasts all of its regular-season and playoff games on free television."
The allies coalesced around the issue of access to games, even though the groups haven’t worked extensively together in the past, participants said. Time Warner Cable and Verizon are corporate donors to the Sports Fan Coalition, which has also gotten in-kind contributions via legal assistance from the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Public Knowledge, said Goodfriend. He founded the coalition, which doesn’t get support from Dish Network, even though he continues to represent the company’s interests in Washington. Even to corporate sponsors of the group, the issue of sports blackouts “doesn’t register very much on their radar screen” because it’s an old rule and sometimes taken as a given, Goodfriend said.
"By any rational measure, the broadcasters should hate the sports blackout rule,” because stations lose local ad buys when they can’t show games featuring a home team that hasn’t sold out, Goodfriend said: “If individual broadcasters could speak their mind on this, they'd say we don’t like blackouts” either, but they're afraid to speak up because of “sports partners” that place a high priority on the issue. When members of the coalition visited a few months ago with Genachowski to discuss the blackouts, he wasn’t much aware of the issue, and that showed it’s an area where the spotlight is needed, Goodfriend said. “All we're really asking for is to open a proceeding on it” to have that “debate in the open,” he said. “If we open a record on it, I think you'll find some pretty interesting political bedfellows."
"There may well be support for this” request expressed by various TV industry groups, if the FCC starts a proceeding, said Senior Vice President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, also a coalition member. Genachowski “is very focused on getting rid of regulatory underbrush these days” and “it’s a very good example,” Schwartzman said: Nixing the rule would promote the “flow” of information -- games to viewers -- so MAP backs the petition.