Beerball Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 At a time when all home games were blacked out: Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson wrote Nixon on Aug. 2, 1973, that “lifting of the ‘blackout’ on sold-out games poses perhaps the most serious threat to the over-all well-being of professional football that it has faced in recent history.” This came after Nixon via his AG told Rozelle that if the NFL lifted blackouts for playoff games Nixon would block any legislation to change the league policy. link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UConn James Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Ralph's opinion on the matter doesn't seem to have changed in 40 years. If he could black out every game, I'm about 89% sure he would do it. 'Let's put our sports entertainment product under a ing rock!' I don't get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Offside Number 76 Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Consider the first sentence: "The NFL, which is trying to maintain its TV blackout of home games that don't sell out, missed an opportunity 40 years ago to preserve an even more restrictive policy when it rebuffed an effort by President Richard Nixon to lift the hometown blackout just for playoff games." I think the writer misses this point: Had the NFL not moved to the less-restrictive policy that it has now (blackouts only for home games that don't sell out, as opposed to blackouts for all home games), it never would have become the league that it is today. Television made the NFL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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