NFL blackouts update: Packers, Colts, Bengals now have sellouts

[RandySF]

The NFL averted the embarrassment of local TV blackouts of playoff games this weekend in Green Bay, Indianapolis and Cincinnati, with the teams announcing Friday that all their remaining tickets had been purchased.

The Packers announced just after noon ET that fans and corporate sponsors had purchased the roughly 1,000 tickets that remained for the 4:40 p.m. ET game Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers, a game that is expected to be played in NFL-record cold temperatures. Associated Bank and Fox affiliates in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Wausau — which will broadcast the game — were among those purchasing the tickets, the Packers said.

A grocery chain in Indianapolis purchased the Colts’ remaining 1,200 tickets, ensuring that the 4:35 p.m. game Saturday against the Kansas City Chiefs is a sellout. Owner Jim Irsay hinted at the news Friday morning in his typically restrained way on Twitter, his favorite mode of communication.

Meijer, a Grand Rapids, Mich., retailer that is a corporate sponsor of the Colts, purchased the remaining tickets and plans to donate them to military families, the Colts announced.

The Bengals announced that Kroger and Procter and Gamble had purchased the remaining tickets for the 1:05 p.m. game Sunday against the San Diego Chargers.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2014/01/03/colts-avoid-nfl-playoff-game-blackout/

[BlueStreak]

1. This whole concept is really messed up.

First the taxpayers have to pay for the stadiums that make these guys rich.

Then they hold us hostage if every last seat isn't sold, even though the majority of their income comes from the teevee contracts.

But wait, there's more. They arrange a ridiculous schedule that has the playoff games played in wind chills of minus-30 and then bitch because the fans don't want to sit through that.

Then they decide that they can make a lot more teevee revenue if they change the rules so that it is likely that more than half the games in final week of the regular season are actually involved in a playoff seeding outcome.

And that means that nobody can really start selling their playoff tickets until just 6 days before the first playoff games, which happens to include the New Year's holiday, so there are actually really about 2 good days to sell the tickets before the self-imposed 72-hour blackout rule.

And if that isn't enough, some of the teams (Colts, e.g.) started selling playoff tickets to season ticket holders in Mid-December, but they demanded that the season ticket holders PAY FOR TWO PLAYOFF GAMES, even though the odds were slim that the Colts would have any possibility of hosting more than one game (and in fact they cannot.) But now the Colts wonder why a lot of season ticket holders said "screw that nonsense." and decided to sit it out. The team said that they would apply the extra money to next year's season tickets, or the customer could come in for a refund in January. But most of the schmucks who go to these games live hand to mouth and run up big Christmas debts. So why should they put out the cash for a ticket that almost certainly would not be used?

And then they get all over the media implying the fans don't "support the troops" er, I mean "the team" enough.

To hell with all of them.