The Federal Communications Commission today unanimously voted to eliminate its sports blackout rules, challenging the National Football League to end its own policies that sometimes prevent fans from watching home games on TV.

"Today’s FCC action makes clear: if leagues want to mistreat fans, they will have to do so without Uncle Sam’s help," said David Goodfriend, an attorney and lobbyist who founded a group called the Sports Fans Coalition that fought against the rules.

NFL broadcasts are blacked out in local markets when games are not sold out. The NFL in 2012 relaxed the rules by letting individual teams reduce the likelihood of a blackout by only requiring that 85 percent of tickets be sold. But the policies have persisted for decades with support from the federal government.

The FCC’s 5-0 vote removes the government’s support for blackouts—but it won’t end blackouts themselves, commissioners said. Until today, the 40-year-old rules prohibited cable and satellite companies from airing sports events that had been blacked out on local broadcast stations. In practice, the rules supported the NFL’s blackout regime but did not affect other major sports leagues. The NFL can still use private contracts to prevent fans from seeing games, but commissioners challenged the league to stop the fan-unfriendly policy.

“For 40 years, these teams have hidden behind a rule of the FCC. No more,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Everyone needs to be aware who allows blackouts to exist and it is not the Federal Communications Commission… I hope the NFL will seize on this opportunity to repudiate blackouts just like we’re about to repudiate the blackout rule here.”

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who proposed repealing the rules when she was acting chairwoman last November, noted that many fans cannot even afford to park at a football game, let alone purchase tickets.

The NFL did not make any promise to change its policies after today's vote. In a statement, NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said, “NFL teams have made significant efforts in recent years to minimize blackouts. The NFL is the only sports league that televises every one of its games on free, over-the-air television. The FCC’s decision will not change that commitment for the foreseeable future.”

While some games are on ESPN and the NFL Network, these contests are aired locally on over-the-air TV in the participating teams' markets.

“I hope that the NFL will not dig in its heels”

The NFL lobbied heavily to keep the rules in place, but it couldn’t even garner support from Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly, who are generally more favorable to corporate interests than the three Democratic members of the FCC.

“I hope that the NFL will not respond to today’s vote by digging in its heels,” Pai said. “Instead, it should view this decision as an opportunity to revisit the blackout policy with fans like Mr. Steinmiller in mind and to adopt a more fan-friendly approach.”

Earlier in his statement, Pai described Buffalo Bills fan Denis Steinmiller, a disabled Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, “one of the thousands of sports fans who have written to the commission asking us to eliminate this forty-year-old, hopelessly outdated rule.” Nine Bills games have been blacked out in western New York in the past four years.

O’Rielly, also a Bills fan, noted that the team’s famous playoff comeback against the Houston Oilers in 1993 was blacked out, preventing most fans in Buffalo from watching one of the team’s greatest successes.

The NFL has claimed its blackout policy benefits fans by keeping ticket prices down and preventing the league from moving games to pay-TV, but a group of economists told the FCC that these arguments are not supported by evidence.

The NFL moved some games to cable packages even with the FCC’s rules in place. But FCC members said ending sellout-related blackouts won’t hasten that shift. The NFL's current contracts with broadcast networks are in place through 2022.

“By moving games to pay-TV, the NFL would be cutting off its nose to spite its face,” Pai said. “Television contracts—not gate receipts—make up a substantial majority of the NFL’s revenues nowadays. And professional football is, by far, America’s most popular sport in part because it is the only major sport that makes most games available on free, over-the-air television.”

The incremental shift to pay-TV might even help the NFL keep its blackout policies in place. Monday Night Football is on ESPN, and Thursday night games are on the NFL Network. The NFL could, for example, insist that cable companies honor blackouts in exchange for getting access to the NFL Network.

“We cannot guarantee an end to sports blackouts. That is because blackouts can still be enforced by privately negotiated contracts,” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said. “But I would hope that leagues that rely on this rule, namely the NFL, find a way to avoid blackouts.”

Unfortunately for fans, the FCC’s vote won’t prevent a newer kind of blackout that affects online video. Home games for hockey, basketball, and baseball are blacked out in streaming video packages sold by the National Hockey League, National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball. Fans who want to watch home games on TV have to either buy a cable package or evade the blackouts by using services such as VPNs that mask their location.