The NFL maintained a blackout policy, from 1973 through 2014, that stated that a home game cannot be televised in the team's local market if 85 percent of the tickets are not sold out 72 hours before the starting time of the match.
This made the NFL the only major professional sports league in the US that requires teams to sell out tickets in order to broadcast a game on television locally.
NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle refused to lift the blackout for the NFC Championship Game, despite a plea from United States Attorney General Richard Kleindienst.
(Nixon watched the playoff games vs. the Packers and Cowboys from the Florida White House on Key Biscayne and from Camp David, respectively,[10] and Super Bowl VII from his friend Bebe Rebozo's Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Florida[11]) Rozelle agreed to lift the blackout for Super Bowl VII on an "experimental basis," if the game sold out ten or more days in advance.
[13] Unsold tickets allocated to visiting teams, as well as all seats located in premium club sections and luxury suites have been excluded from the blackout rule.
Teams themselves are allowed to purchase remaining non-premium tickets at 34¢ on the dollar (the portion subject to revenue sharing) to prevent a blackout.
The NFL can still enforce its blackout policies on a contractual basis with television networks, stations, and service providers, a process made feasible by the large amount of leverage the league places on its media partners.
[21] The suspension continued into the 2016 season; commissioner Roger Goodell stated that the league needed to further investigate the impact of removing the blackout rules before such a change is made permanent.
Therefore, a blackout affects any market where the terrestrial broadcast signal of an affiliate station, under normal conditions, penetrates into the 75-mile radius.
Some remote primary media markets, such as Denver and Phoenix, may cover that entire radius, so that the blackout would not affect any other affiliates.
The most notable example is the blackout of Buffalo Bills games within the Syracuse, New York market because a small section of the town of Italy in Yates County, containing a handful of people, lies within the 75-mile radius of Highmark Stadium (a stadium that has failed to sell out numerous times, usually due to the harsh winter weather the area receives on the shores of Lake Erie and fans not commuting to Orchard Park for their safety or by municipal orders and not the Bills' playing record by itself); while the entirety of the remainder of the Syracuse market lies outside of it.
Despite this, the league still enforced Bills blackouts for Syracuse and, because the Mohawk Valley did not have a CBS affiliate of its own and relied on Syracuse CBS affiliate WTVH to cover that area, the Mohawk Valley DMA as well (despite the fact that no part of that area comes remotely close to the 75-mile threshold); because of this, the Bills' blackout radius extended hundreds of miles beyond the actual stadium, well into Herkimer County.
The NFL does allow in some cases for secondary markets to extend beyond the 75 mile radius in part to help draw fans to attend the game.
An exception to the 75-mile rule is the Green Bay Packers' market area, which stretches out to both the Green Bay and Milwaukee television markets, with two radio stations sharing flagship duties (the city's WTMJ served as the network's flagship until 2021, and select Packer home games were played in that city until 1994).
The Denver Broncos, Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Commanders also have sellout streaks that predate the current blackout rules, and therefore have not had any of their home games blacked out since 1972 (each of these teams also have long waiting lists for season tickets).
The NFL relaxed this restriction beginning in 2019, allowing a station to air a game opposite the local home team up to two times.
[24] Special exemptions are in effect when other events (such as the US Open Tennis Championships Final through 2014, the Major League Baseball playoffs, golf's Ryder Cup in 1991 and 1995, or the 2022 FIFA World Cup final) air on one of the two networks broadcasting Sunday games, which typically have a 4:30 p.m. start time (tennis or baseball), or will run through 1:00 p.m. (soccer and golf).
Due to damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, the Saints split their home games between Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Tiger Stadium at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and the Alamodome in San Antonio, with most home games being played in Baton Rouge.
The same applies for the Orlando, Florida metropolitan area, as its local CBS affiliate WKMG-TV broadcasts both Miami Dolphins and Jacksonville Jaguars games.
However, the Jaguars granted a one-time waiver of the secondary markets rule requirement for the Orlando market, thus allowing WKMG to air the Patriots-Dolphins game; this is most likely because the Dolphins had clinched a playoff spot the previous week and the Patriots were going for home-field advantage in the AFC, while both the Jaguars and Colts had both been eliminated from playoff contention.
For instance, Youngstown, Ohio lies roughly halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, is within the 75-mile radius for both cities and is considered a battleground territory in the Browns–Steelers rivalry.
However, on December 2, 2012, when the Browns played at the Raiders and the Steelers played at the Ravens in the late window of a CBS doubleheader, WKBN aired the Steelers game as the former was between two teams that were out of playoff contention, while the latter was between two teams that were in playoff contention (as well as the AFC North title), and was also the main game of the late CBS window.
For example, in Texas, virtually all CBS and Fox stations respectively carry the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys when games involving those teams are on different networks.
In another example, Seattle Seahawks games are usually aired on Fox (and occasionally CBS) stations across the entire Pacific Northwest as the team is the only NFL franchise in the area.
In addition, Burlington, Vermont (whose Fox affiliate, WFFF-TV, has a coverage area that includes Plattsburgh in the eastern corner of New York) has become an unofficial market for the Giants, preventing the Patriots from having full control over all New England markets (the Patriots, as an American Football Conference team, still receive copious coverage on the local CBS affiliate, WCAX-TV).
Four years later, ABC affiliate WGGB-TV established their own Fox DT2 subchannel, taking over from Hartford's WTIC-TV as Springfield's default Fox affiliate and allowing that market access to the remainder of Patriots Sunday home games with an NFC opponent (WGGB-DT2 otherwise carries mainly Giants home games like the remainder of New England's other stations).
An oddity of "temporary" secondary markets have occurred in Wisconsin, Washington and South Carolina as a result of a rooting interest in one particular player.
Previously, the Minnesota Vikings were requested as much as possible by Oklahoma stations due to the presence of former OU star running back Adrian Peterson.
Other instances of markets carrying contests featuring alumnus of the local college include Philadelphia Eagles games in Fargo, North Dakota (former North Dakota State player Carson Wentz was the Eagles' starting quarterback), the Chiefs in Lubbock, Texas (and nearby Amarillo), where Patrick Mahomes attended Texas Tech.
[41] Networks, however, have the ability to override a station's request; WIVB-TV in Buffalo, for instance, requested a New England Patriots–Denver Broncos game in December 2011, due to the fact that the hometown Buffalo Bills faced both teams in the upcoming weeks and because of the high-profile showdown between Tim Tebow and Tom Brady; the station instead received a game between the New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles.