Blackout in Atlanta?

Falcons could be blacked out because of low ticket sales. Even if they're not blacked out, will anybody watch?

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/falcons/stories/2007/10/30/falconstix_1031.html

 

Big whoop. Growing up near Philadelphia in the 80s, this was a way of life.

 

Tix were cheap, you could by upper deck then upgrade in the middle of the second quarter, a practice learned from empty Braves games.

 

Hell, I still do that at Braves games. $1 skyline or $5 G.A seat for about three innings, then slip into a row behind the dugout to watch the rest of it.

 

Atlanta has a football team? No shit...

 

People forget the Detroit Lions were often blacked out when they played at the 75,000-seat Pontiac Silverdome. It was almost a weekly occurrence.

 

Often? Other than Thanksgiving, they probably showed like two home games from 1994-2006

 

Exactly. I can remember Ford and Chrysler and other huge corporations scrambling to buy up ticket lots when it looked like there was a chance a game would be soldout.

 

Silverdome had football seating for 80,300 and change.

 

I've never really understood the blackout rule. You're going to create interest in your game by not showing it on TV? They have to sell 3,000 seats by tomorrow, or the game will be blacked out locally. The Georgia Dome seats 71,000, and I take this to mean they'd sold 68,000 at press time. There are 16 stadiums in the NFL where they would have already qualified to lift the blackout.