The most powerful regulators of media and communications in the U.S. heard from our Most Valuable Policymaker yesterday and the results were great for fans.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who was honored at Sports Fans Coalition’s “Most Valuable Policymaker” (MVP) awards last year, grilled FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and the other four FCC Commissioners at a Senate oversight hearing about blackouts of sports events and why the FCC isn’t doing more to stop them.  Citing the proceeding instigated by SFC to end the Sports Blackout Rule, Sen. Blumenthal pressed Chairman Genachowski on why the FCC hasn’t done more. Here’s a transcript of the exchange:

BLUMENTHAL: Finally, because my time is limited: Blackouts. Sports blackouts. Grave concern, deeply troubling, especially to many in Connecticut. When they see that their favorite football team on Sunday or their favorite baseball team or their college sports team has been blacked out in their area. The commission, as you know, put out a notice of inquiry but hasn’t yet moved to a notice of rulemaking. I wrote to the FCC back in 2011 to ask that you open this proceeding to discuss whether the nearly 40 year-old sports blackout rule, I think it’s 40 years old, is still relevant in today’s environment. And I wonder if you could give me an update, a status report, on where you are on this issue, which is profoundly important to people in Connecticut, but I think across the nation. 

GENACHOWSKI: Blackouts are of tremendous concern to consumers, we certainly hear from them as you do. An area where it comes up too often is the retransmission consent area. This is an area where we’ve had discussions with the committee in the past and look forward to continuing it, as it may be time to update those provisions to reduce the chances of blackouts during retransmission consent negotiations. 

Thank you, Sen. Blumenthal!  Sports fans across America once again can see that you’re on their side.  Blackouts are obnoxious.  They abuse the very public that helped pay for sports through public stadium subsidies and through massive exemptions to the law enacted by Congress.  Whether a local blackout ordered by a sports league or a take-down during a contract dispute, it’s the fan who suffers.  It has to end.  Sen. Blumenthal gets it.

Rather than just buying up the remaining 11,000 tickets to Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers, the San Diego Chargers owner would rather black out loyal Charger fans. It is the fourth time in seven games that Southern California will be unable to watch the Chargers. The Chargers tried to use Groupon to move the final 13,000 tickets but wound up selling only a couple thousand more. Of course, the Groupon deal wasn’t really all that fantastic: a regular ticket cost $76 v. $68 for the same seat plus $20 in concessions. Rather than using gimmicks, the Chargers could have just simply lowered ticket prices. But no, NFL owners continue to unethically and counterproductively black out loyal fans, some of whom are physically unable to go.

The Charger blackout marks the 13th in the NFL this season.

Three teams’ fans will be blacked out this weekend thanks to the absurd, archaic, unethical, counterproductive NFL blackout rule. Sorry, fans in San Diego, Buffalo and Oakland. The NFL and your owners continue to hate you. They simply view you in terms of your potential profitability for them.

Thus far in the 2012 NFL season, there have been 12 blackouts including this weekend’s games.

Oakland’s blackout marks the first blackout in 13 games. The Raiders were one of the few teams to adopt the NFL’s 85% threshold policy for blackouts.

Buffalo’s blackout is the first (and not likely the last) blackout this season.

San Diego’s blackout is the third this season.

Here’s the full list of blackouts:

Week 1
Tampa Bay (Carolina)

Week 3
San Diego (Atlanta)

Week 4
Tampa Bay (Washington)

Week 6
Tampa Bay (KC)

Week 10
Tampa Bay (San Diego)
Cincinnati (New York Giants)

Week 12
Tampa Bay (Atlanta)
San Diego (Baltimore)

Week 13
Oakland (Cleveland)
San Diego (Cincinnati)
Buffalo (Jacksonville)

Rather than thanking local fans for their loyalty and goodwill, three NFL owners chose to black out fans this Thanksgiving weekend. All three blackouts — in Cincinnati, Tampa Bay and Oakland — took place in stadiums that were either entirely or almost entirely paid for by the public. Keep in mind that these owners could have opted to buy up remaining tickets for pennies on the dollar and given the tickets to charity…

The Tampa Bay Bucs are blacking out fans for the 23rd time in 26 home games. The Bucs ownership and the NFL continue to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that blackouts actually work and aren’t, in fact, killing an entire fan base. As one fan put it in a local report: “If it’s not on TV, you don’t get the publicity and the interest to get people back out to the stadium to actually want to buy tickets.”  Remember that the Glazer family, which owns the Bucs, could avoid a blackout for $100,000 which, given their net worth, amounts to about $3.70 to you and me. The team also benefits from a stadium deal that ends up netting the family over $1.5 million per year just on operating income.

Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Bengals are blacking out fans for the first time this season, after choosing not to take advantage of the NFL’s new relaxed blackout policy. “What we want are sold-out houses. We want to see the stadium full,” Bengals president Mike Brown said at the time. ”If you think back when they passed the sales to finance the stadiums (in 1996), they did it so people could come down to the stadiums and watch games. They didn’t do it so people could stay at home and watch games on television. They could have done that without a new stadium. When I look around the league, most are staying with the old rule.”

Actually, they did it because Brown was threatening to take the team and leave unless the public agreed to build a new stadium for the Bengals.

Consider this, from the June 25, 1995 edition of the Washington Post:

Bengals President Mike Brown said he’s giving Cincinnati and Hamilton County officials until Thursday to finalize an agreement for a new stadium. If an agreement can’t be signed by then, Brown said he’ll terminate discussions with local officials and begin negotiating with a group trying to lure an NFL team to Baltimore.

And keep in mind the Cincinnati public has already paid through the teeth after agreeing to one of the worst stadium deals in history.

Finally, since Brown and the Bengals seem to believe that blackouts will drive people to the stadium: “BLACKOUTS HAVE NO SIGNIFICANT EFFECT ON TICKET SALES IN THE NFL.”