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FOR USE AS DESIRED ALL LOCAL BLACKOUTS LIFTED RECORD FOURTH TIME For a season-record fourth time this year, the NFL has sold out all games in advance of the local TV blackout deadline for a weekend, enabling the 16 games of Week 11 to be televised in the home-team market, the NFL announced today. The four no-blackout weekends for this season top the three such weekends of 2000. The local blackout has been lifted on 148 of 160 games this season through Week 11, a 93 percent rate. That is on pace to shatter the season record of 86 percent of the local blackouts lifted, set in 2000. The blackouts for all games were lifted in Week 2 (September 15-16), Week 5 (October 6-7) and Week 6 (October 13-14) of this season. Blackouts have been lifted for all games on a single weekend nine times in NFL history since the blackout policy took effect in 1973 – on September 6-7, 1998; three times in 2000 -- on November 12-13, November 19-20, and December 10-11; on November 22-26, 2001; and Weeks 2, 5, 6 and 11 of this season. The NFL blackout policy states that games sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff will be televised in the home city. |