USA Today‘s “Sports Television” writer Michael Hiestand has a fantastic column up calling on the NFL to get rid of its blackout policy. “Since the NFL markets extreme violence as family fun, it makes sense the league is wildly image-conscious. So it makes no sense why the sports world’s Daddy Warbucks keeps nickel-and-diming fans with its anachronistic local TV blackouts.” HA! And…Exactly!

It remains the height of absurdity that the NFL could sign the biggest television contracts in history, which will top $6 billion per year by 2014, and still claim that it needs every single last ticket to be sold or its going to black out its fans. The same fans whose tax dollars paid for the stadium. As Hiestand writes, “If teams in by far the most popular sport in America can’t sell out eight home games, don’t punish their local fans — send them to classes that explain supply and demand.”

You can read the rest of Hiestand’s column here.

Sports Fans Coalition continues to call on the NFL to eliminate its blackout rule. It’s unethical, counterproductive and unnecessary.