Breaking: NFL to suspend blackout policy for the 2015 season http://t.co/axRJrBYYW5
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 23, 2015
Developing.
The National Football League television blackout policies are among the strictest television blackout policies among the four major professional sports league in North America. Since 1973, the NFL has maintained a blackout policy that states that a home game cannot be televised locally if it is not sold out 72 hours prior to its start time.
This makes the NFL the only major professional sports league that requires teams to sell out in order to broadcast a game on television locally. Although nationally-televised games in the other leagues are often blacked out on the national networks they are airing on in their local markets, they can still be seen on their local regional sports network that normally has their local broadcasting rights.
