The NFL and the NFLPA currently don’t agree on very much. Recently, they’ve come together on a topic that remains largely unpopular among the league’s fan base.
According to Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, the NFLPA quietly sent a letter to the FCC in July opposing the proposed elimination of the blackout rule. The correspondence came with no press release or other comment, including no comment in response to Kaplan’s request for comment.
The AFL-CIO sent a letter opposing the elimination of the rule last week, along with a press release.
NFLPA public policy counsel Joe Briggs wrote in July that elimination of the blackout rule, which blocks local broadcast of home games if the local stadium isn’t sold out within 72 hours of kickoff, “will threaten the continued broadcast of NFL games on free, over-the-air television, hurting football fans and threatening the business model that has made NFL games so popular and widely viewed.”
