The perfect season blacked out

[Daytona Fin]

Interesting read on the blackout adventures of the 70's Dolphins. Maybe some of our seasoned vets can share some of their similar stories.

Forty years of federal NFL blackout policy came to an end Tuesday when the FCC stopped its protection of the process. There’s not as much change here, though, as it sounds.
The old threat of not being able to see a Dolphins home game on local TV because it’s not sold out didn’t have much sting anyway. Only two games were blacked out across the league last season, one in San Diego and one in Buffalo, and not since 1998 has a Dolphins regular-season home broadcast been denied to South Florida viewers.

Through the 1972 season, every NFL game was blacked out in its home market, sold out or not. That included the adventures of the perfect 17-0 Dolphins, and created something of a perfect storm in terms of feeding the public appetite for football.
What resulted was a cottage industry of blackout-busting locations, each of them designed to beat the system on behalf of customers who didn’t have one of the 80,000 seats at the old Orange Bowl.
Because the blackout zone extended 75 miles from every stadium, and because the signal of West Palm Beach’s WPTV-Channel 5 reached into that zone, hundreds of people raced up to St. Lucie County on Sunday mornings to book a motel room and watch the Dolphins on Fort Pierce’s WTVX. Fort Pierce bars got a big piece of that action, too.
It was the same all over the country, with New York Giants fans driving to Connecticut to see their team, Chicago Bears fans driving to South Bend, Ind., to see theirs, and so forth.
Nobody had the fever like Miami fans that year, however, and fevers must be fed. That inspired all kinds of Palm Beach County establishments to install tall TV antennas in order to snare the distant Fort Pierce signal.
Digging through the Palm Beach Post archives today I found a 1972 ad for the Tiger’s Paw Lounge offering a place to watch the Dolphins and no cover. Other advertised possibilities were the Hilton Inn on Singer Island and the Village Lodge and Restaurant in Tequesta. That last one made a special point of shouting “We’re Not Blacked Out!”
An outfit called TelePrompTer, first of the national cable TV providers, promised its Palm Beach County customers a look at Dolphins home games until WPTV complained to the FCC. There’s no telling, too, how many bootleg operations existed that didn’t care to advertise.

Hugh Culverhouse, the Buccaneers’ original owner, understood the Dolphins’ popularity and worried that fans in his market would stay home to watch Miami on television rather than coming to Tampa Stadium to watch his losing team. His response was to prevent Tampa-area stations from broadcasting Dolphin games on the same afternoon of Buc home games, and for a while he kept Miami games off the Fort Myers station, too.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/s.../nhbBR/?ecmp=pbp_social_facebook_dolphins_sfp

 

[royalshank]

That's a great read - thanks!

 

[Sons Of Shula]

Wow. Had no idea about this story. Kind of a shame but I guess this news shouldn't come as a surprise. I remember scampering over to Naples across Alligator Alley (or Tamiami Trail) every once and while as a kid to watch some Dolphin games but that was from the early 80's and on.

 

[Ruckus45]

That's really interesting. I bet it meant more people went to the games. Sadly, I think if that were today owners would take advantage of it.

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

That's really interesting. I bet it meant more people went to the games. Sadly, I think if that were today owners would take advantage of it.

It was a bit different from today in that people would go to crazy lengths to watch the game because there weren't any tickets left to be had. My dad was a season ticket holder from the inaugural season through the late 70s and told me that even when travel prevented him from going to about 3-4 home games a year, he held on to his season tickets because it could be hard to find 'em on a game by game basis. :idk:

 

[72TributeBike]

Back in 1972, I was 14 years old and lived in Pensacola, FL. I saw every single game of the '72 season! :)

The Minnesota game had me on the edge of my seat.

The Super Bowl was awesome...but as Larry Csonka has told us...going for that field goal to make the score 17-0 was not a smart thing to do. The curse of the Miami kickers began that day!

 

[Ben Had]

I grew up in Merritt Island and dont ever remember a fins game blacked out, of course I lived more than 75 miles from the stadium...The dolphins were the only pro team in florida and the orange bowl rocked!

Much different times now with the internet and all the electronics...impossible to deny a fan a game if they have reasonable computer skills.

 

[Ben Had]

Back in 1972, I was 14 years old and lived in Pensacola, FL. I saw every single game of the '72 season! :)

The Minnesota game had me on the edge of my seat.

The Super Bowl was awesome...but as Larry Csonka has told us...going for that field goal to make the score 17-0 was not a smart thing to do. The curse of the Miami kickers began that day!

We use to have some good high school championship games againt you guys in Pensacola in the 70's:3w:

Go .... Merritt Island Mustangs ... :lol2:

 

[uk_dolfan]

very interesting read. thanks for posting :)