2012 will bring long-overdue relief for many Portland Trail Blazer fans in Oregon and Washington who have been unable to watch games because they don’t have access to Comcast. Thanks to the outcry from Blazer fans and members of Sports Fans Coalition, the team and Comcast announced this week that games will be made available online in areas where Comcast is not available.

Last year, Sports Fans Coalition leaders flew out to Portland to meet with Blazer leadership and Comcast Northwest leadership. SFC also presented thousands of signatures to the Oregon State Legislature asking for a resolution to the situation. Two years ago, SFC board member Brad Blakeman testified in front of the Oregon State Legislature about the issue.

The online streaming is not available to fans who already have access to Comcast, meaning that most fans still have to subscribe to Comcast in order to see games, so SFC continues to demand that Comcast and DISH and DirecTV resolve their differences so fans have a CHOICE of how they watch Blazer games. But the online streaming option for some fans is a step in the right direction.

Read more about it here.

According to WYFF News in Greenville, “The Clemson Tigers will play in the Orange Bowl against the West Virginia Mountaineers on Jan. 4. Each school was allotted 17,500 tickets for resale. As of Friday, the schools had only sold a third of those tickets. One national sports analyst estimates that Clemson and West Virginia University could each have to pay $2 million for unsold tickets if no more tickets are sold.”

Meanwhile, Virginia Tech is expected to sell just over 10,000 of its 17,500 allotted tickets for the Sugar Bowl. Keep in mind that the Hokies were chosen by the Sugar Bowl over higher-ranked Kansas State because of the Hokies’ presumed ability to travel well. (Kansas State sold 12,500 pre-tickets before the bowls were even announced.) Even Michigan, Tech’s opponent, playing in its first BCS bowl in a while, hasn’t sold out its allotment.

Of course, Hokie fans and Mountaineer fans and Tiger fans aren’t to blame. The problem is that the bowls force the universities to buy these large blocks of expensive tickets. And the leaders of these universities are to blame for even entering into these arrangements in the first place. Until we change the BCS, taxpayers and students will continue to subsidize the bowls.

Sports fans around the country, whether they be transplanted fans of a team in another city or fans frustrated by league blackout rules, are increasingly turning to online streaming sites to watch their favorite games. These sites are generally found via links in the comments section of websites, where users also post clips of games and other copyrighted images. Well, the leagues (the NFL and MLB, in particular) aren’t happy about this and are supporting legislation to crack down on these links and it could mean the end of some of your favorite sites and networks. Sites like SB Nation, Deadspin and Big Lead could all effectively be shuttered and have their advertising funding cut off.

Here’s the deal- Congress is currently debating the latest — and most draconian yet — legislation to try to prevent online piracy. The movie, music and software industry are concerned about online sites overseas that enable users to freely download copyrighted material and/or stream television programming and the sports leagues are joining them in the fight. The House bill is known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate version is known as PROTECT IP. Not only will the legislation be ineffective in clamping down on piracy, it could break the Internet and leave us all more open to cyberattacks. Awesome.

The House Judiciary Committee is actually “marking up the bill” tomorrow (making changes and adding amendments) and given the timing, apparently hoping nobody will pay attention because of the looming holidays. That’s why it’s imperative sports fans and fans of Internet freedom speak up now before it’s too late.

First, read this: SOPA Will Have Serious Implications For Sports Fans And Blogs

Then, click here — Engine Advocacy — to do something. It’s SUPER EASY and just takes a few minutes. AND IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE. SERIOUSLY.

For the second straight game, the Buffalo Bills will be blacked out locally because they are 7,000 seats short of a sellout. Keep in mind that capacity is 73,079 at Ralph Wilson Stadium, which is much higher than at Chicago’s Soldier Field, which has a capacity of 61,500. Also keep in mind that the population of Buffalo is 292,648, while the population of Chicago is 2,896,016. That means that Bills ownership expects a quarter of Buffalo’s population to pay to attend every other Sunday.

Perhaps most importantly, though, keep in mind that the Bills announced their blackout the same day that the NFL reportedly agreed to a new TV rights deal with FOX, CBS and NBC that will pay a total of $28 billion in fees over nine years. The $3.1 billion the NFL will receive from the networks is a 63% increase over the current $1.9 billion paid by the three networks.

So the NFL is making money hand over fist, but continues to blackout fans in Buffalo, Cincy, Tampa, San Diego and elsewhere who can’t afford to go or don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to watch the miserable product on the field. Oh, and the blackout rule is unnecessary, according to NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, who has seen the numbers.

If there’s one certainty in the NFL, it’s GREED.

The Poll Position polling firm released the results of a poll this week on college football’s postseason. Respondents were asked, “Do you favor the BCS system for determining a champion or would you prefer a playoff?” Fifty-five percent said they’d prefer a playoff compared to just 9% who prefer the BCS, while 36% had no opinion. But of those with an opinion — presumably, college football fans — 86% prefer a playoff, compared to 14% for the BCS.

Of course, these results are not shocking considering how flawed, unethical, and corrupt the BCS bowl system is. But they should remind university leaders that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of change. (And President Obama, it’s a political winner!)