The threat of a blacked out Chargers game in San Diego was removed by the National Football League on Monday. Team owners voted unanimously to suspend the longstanding rule for the 2015 season at a meeting in Phoenix.
“It’s the right time, right now,” Chargers owner Dean Spanos told U-T San Diego after the meeting. “Last year, we didn’t have any blackouts, and we still had the ability to go out and sell tickets to different businesses and corporations in the area. I still feel we can do that this year. We’ll continue to try to sell as many tickets as we can, but at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do.”
The blackout rule was instituted in the 1970s when teams rely primarily on tickets sales for revenue. The rule prevented over-the-air broadcasters from showing games when the home team was unable to sell-out a contest 72 hours before kickoff — which happened sometimes to the Chargers over the years.
While there were no blackouts last season, Chargers fans faced the threat of a black out on at least two games — the games against the New York Jets and Jacksonville Jaguars — before sponsors came to the rescue.
The Chargers was one of the only two teams that were blacked out in the 2013 season.
The Federal Communications Commission unanimously got rid of its sports blackout rule in September 2014, but the NFL was still able to enforce its own rule.
Monday’s announcement will not affect the league’s ability to bring back the blackout policy next season.
The announcement, however, does add another wrinkle on the city’s plans to keep the Chargers in San Diego. The team has been asking for a new stadium and Los Angeles is planning to build a state-of-the-art stadium to attract an NFL team, including the Chargers.
Should the league decide to reinstate the blackout rule, Chargers home games may not be blacked out in Los Angeles should the team decide to move to LA. Currently, any blacked out games in San Diego is also blacked out in the LA area.