The STUPIDEST NFL Broadcast in NBC HISTORY | Browns @ 49ers (1981)
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2021
- In a 1981 NFL on NBC game between the Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers, because Candlestick Park was sold out, the game should have been shown live in San Francisco, allowing all 49ers fans who didn't have a ticket to the game to be able to watch it. However, the game was blacked out, because the NFL and NBC messed up absolutely terribly, in a bizarre situation of poor planning that will never happen again. This is the story behind the bizarre, controversial broadcast involving the NFL on NBC
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As a Chiefs fan who started watching as a kid in the 80s, we were lucky to live on top of a hill and could turn the antenna around to get blacked-out home games from the Joplin, Mo. stations.
I live on top of a hill now and all I get out of it is crappy internet ☹
I had no idea arrowhead ever had unsold seats, thought chiefs fans were better than that.
@@bubbafug00gle51 nowadays you have to pay an arm and a leg to go to Chiefs games, but in the 70's and 80's the Chiefs were a moribund franchise. And yeah, I remember in the 80's only seeing Chiefs away games and listening to home games on 101 The Fox. And only every once in a while would you get an attendance at Arrowhead in the 70,000 mark, unlike now where that's considered a low figure.
@@bubbafug00gle51 Kansas City used to have an indoor soccer team called the Comets that played at Kemper Arena. There were times in the 80s where the Comets would outsell the Chiefs. Arrowhead didn't start selling oit until Marty Schottenheimer became coach and Carl Peterson was GM (and one of his first actions was to allow tailgating before games).
@@MilsurpMikeChannel That's funny, thanks for the reply. It reminds me of the Cubs, people think of Cubs fans as being hyper-dedicated because they travel well (thanks to WGN showing their games nationally). But in the late 70's and early 80's they were lucky to draw 10k fans to a game.
I also had no idea there was time tailgating wouldn't have been allowed. I have to assume the ban was to appease religious types. I guess in their minds it was bad enough that football was invading the lord's day... but to have people skipping church to get drunk in a parking lot was just too much.
One interesting result of this rule is how several teams became "national" teams as football fans in many parts of the country would not see their own team on TV so often. Cowboys and Steelers being the chief beneficiaries as they were best teams of their conferences in the 70s and you'd see tons of their games in Detroit, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Boston, etc...
Interesting, I had never thought of that. People in Pittsburgh were annoyed by this. They didn't want people from outside the area jumping on the bandwagon.
@@the_mowron I’m a life long Iowa resident and I’m a huge Steelers fan. But that’s because I became a Pirates fan first, I was on a little league called the Pirates in 1988 and started following the real Pirates and then the Steelers and Penguins too. And even better they have the same colors as the Iowa Hawkeyes. Most of my shirts are black and yellow. Hell, my wife and I had black and yellow as our wedding colors.
I remember the city bus transit system was completely overwhelmed with people wanted to go to the game. Because the Niners rarely sold out before 1981, the city bus system sent a small number of buses to Candlestick Park. By the time of the Cleveland game many more fans wanted to go and the city transit could not keep up. After the Browns game, the city issued a public apology and sent more buses to future games.
The biggest issue on that day was that many more people took the bus because it had rained during he week and many of the parking spots had flooded and not usable. Combine this and the fact that the city had not kept up with the demand, you had a shortage of buses. As stated in the video, the game was really bad and was.a very lackluster affair.
The 2007 preseason game with the Raiders at Candlestick coincided with some big concert at Oracle (Pac Bell Park then). It took us like 3 hours to get from the bay bridge to Candlestick. Arrived at our seats with about 1 minute to go in the 2nd quarter. This is preseason. Starters long since off the field. A co-worker of mine took one of the free buses they had from one of the Market St BART stations to the stadium, and the bus was stuck on the freeway onramp for like 2 hours. People were trying to get off and the bus driver wouldn't let them. lol. Just nuts. Anyway, thought I would insert my Candlestick traffic fiasco story here. I miss the Stick, and I'm a Raider fan. Great memories. My stepfather is a niner fan and had season tix. Got to see Joe play many times. Not a lot of 80's kids can say that.
I just remember I was 13 at the time and dumbfuddled why my first place 49ers weren't on TV. Did I miss something? I got over it and went about my business. I cant remember what I did that day other than hear we lost like 15-12 to the CLEVELAND EFFING BROWNS!!!. Maybe it's just as well I didn't watch them that day. Come to find out we didn't lose another game the rest of the season and won the Super Bowl, so it all turned out petty good 🙂
I remember many times in the early 70's Steelers home games were blacked out including the Immaculate Reception playoff game vs the Raiders. I lived about 45 minutes from Pittsburgh but we were still in the blackout radius zone. So we had to go to my uncle's house like 10 miles away to watch the game. So crazy, am glad the NFL eventually changed this madness.
That must have been exciting though and worth it to drive the 10 miles. I remember that game vividly as a 9 year old kid. Why? We had just moved back to the USA from Germany from an air force base. We could only get NFL games through armed forces radio network on the radio. Early game 7 pm, late game 10 pm. Games on tv were in black and white and two week old tapes they would show on Saturday afternoons. When we got to the hotel in Hampton Virginia, THAT was the first game I remember LIVE and IN COLOR on television as a kid. It was such a treat for us. I was lucky that THAT game was the first live and in color NFL game I had ever seen. Although I was and still am a Viking fan, I was a Franco Harris fan after that game.
@@jonirving5606 That game may have been why Congress forced the NFL to televise home games that sold out. That was actually common practice in ALL sports back then, in 1970 when the Knicks won the first of their two NBA titles the game was not shown live on WABC-TV (Channel 7) in New York, which saw the game on tape delay at 11:30 PM local time.
I don't know why but seeing that old footage of all those happy, smiling faces in the crowd made me feel really good and content for a moment. Just seemed like a day when there were nothing but good vibes in the air (until play began, lol).
And when game began, it was time for real football!
Say what?
Blackouts should have never been a part of the NFL landscape.
Its all about the $
Imagine how frustrating it must have been for fans of the home team in the NFL Championship Game. With tickets all but impossible to get (unless you were a season ticket holder), you had two choices: either listen to the game on the radio, or as many fans did, drive the 100 miles outside of the blackout area in order to be able to view the game on television.
I am pretty sure that t type of blackout described in this video is a red herring. I can totally understand a team figuring it needs to do whatever it can to boost ticket sales.
I remember back when t Saints sucked and often did not sell out if sales ever got close and close to the deadline some business would buy t remaining hundred or so for t good will and publicity. They wouldn't have done that w/o t threat of a blackout.
@@daBEAGLE1017 Which is why I could never figure why they kept the blackout rules for so long. They make more money televising a game in the home market than they do having fans go to the stadium. But then again the NFL isn't known for making sensible decisions.
That was common in most sports other than baseball then. In NYC, Knicks and Rangers home games were only shown on cable on what is now MSG Network (in its earliest form) while road games were generally on WOR-TV (Channel 9, now WWOR-TV). Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals where the Knicks won the first of their two titles was blacked out on WABC-TV (Channel 7) and shown locally on tape delay at 11:30 PM.
Live gate back then was more important to teams than TV revenue. TV money was NOTHING like it is now.
NBC should have been allowed to offer the San Francisco/Cleveland game to an independent station in the San Francisco/Oakland market.
My choice would have been channel 2 with the Creature Featcher dude on the sideline interview.
NBC would've had several choices and wouldn't have had any issues finding a taker if the NFL weren't so rigid back then.
I remember hearing of New York area Giants fans in the 70s traveling to to hotels in the Hartford/New Haven TV market to watch blacked out home games.
NBC couldn't broadcast the game without the well known "express written consent". The league wouldn't give that consent, so they couldn't legally broadcast the game. Don't blame them, this one was all on the league.
Interesting story. I can't believe the blackout rule lasted until 2014
Nothing like the tone deafness of have a blackout rule during a financial crisis in 2008.
@@freeparking301 Not only due to the financial crisis, but also fans being able to get around blackouts by 2008.
With so many people having ways to get around blackouts even as early as the 2000s and the massive loss of ad revenue in the home team's DMA/TV market, that rule no longer served its intended purpose.
@@marcus813 That’s a good point…people damn sure weren’t driving 75 miles away to the motel that had the game like they did back in the day.
Back then you could just watch any game you wanted on justin tv. At least until the stream was shut down and you had to load a new one.
Nothing like a matchup between the only two franchises from the All-American Football Conference (AAFC) to survive the transition to the NFL after the AAFC folded. BTW the AAFC was also home to the original Buffalo Bills and the original Baltimore Colts.
Side note: Matt Bahr kicked the game winning for CLE in this game. However, at the start of '81 season, Bahr was the 49ers kicker, before being cut and picked up by CLE.
Yeah I remember. Ray Wersching our regular kicker had a hamstring pull for a few games
He sure had his revenge against the Niners in the ‘90 NFC Championship game!
As a Viking fan, I remember many home games through 1997 either being blacked out or General Mills stepping up and buying the remaining tickets so the game could be locally televised. That all changed in 1998 when a guy named Randy Moss was drafted.
I remember back to the Metropolitan stadium days. The purple people eaters ect
It was tough being from the South and being a Vikings fan in the 70s and 80s because they were rarely on TV where I lived. The Saints and Cowboys were on regularly down here.
Great stuff. I love the television controversy videos. This was an issue with the Giants and Jets for years before cross flexing. If the Giants hosted an AFC team, the Jets had to play in prime time or on Saturday, and vice versa. But the scheduling always accounted for that.
Not always. There was a Cleveland-Giants game that was blacked out locally. You needed cable to watch from NBC Hartford.
I don't think you can blame NBC, since they tried and the League would not let them out of the terms of the contract. Also, when the schedule was made, I expect nobody thought this would be a problem as who expected the 49ers to sell out a game that year?
One of the rare idiotic decisions NOT made by NBC in the era.
Welcome to Dumb (Broadcasting) Decisions
the third option to watch was what fans like my Dad did- they jumped on a bus and went to a city or town X miles away outside of the blackout zone to watch the games.
This was fantastic reporting on a story I absolutely remember. You did a great job laying out the historical context of blackouts and how it changed in 1972. The 1981 story on 11/15, well yeah, it was not a good day for NBC and the NFL. That was a really bad mess up. Just have the doubleheader and all works out...sometimes, logic gets lost in the weeds. This was definitely one of those times....and on a different note, you are so right about what it was like in NY at that time with watching football games with the Jets and the Giants. Again, amazing video
NY football fans in the 70s really could've used out of town games being shown as both local teams they had to watch were dreadful
@@franklingordon3354 Didn’t the Jets have Joe Namath in the 70’s?
@@crowtservo Yes, but even with "Broadway Joe," the Jets were never really that good after 1969 until 1981, when the Jets AND Giants made the playoffs in the same season for the first time ever.
To add to the context here: at the time of this game, KRON-TV (channel 4, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate) was the NBC affiliate station serving the San Francisco/Bay Area market.
Not the first time NBC screwed up the broadcast of a football game. I’m surprised they never screwed up The Super Bowl….at least not yet.
*cough cough* "The Heidi Game" (1968) *cough cough*
Jets vs. Raiders
@@Official_Kings_Versus that wasn't a Super Bowl. Wasn't even a playoff game.
@@Rockhound6165I was mentioning "The Heidi Game" (Jets/Raiders) that happened in the 1968-69 NFL season.
Tuck Rule game
As a kid growing up in Houston, I remember eagerly awaiting the Cowboys game at 3 PM, but as soon as the clock struck 3, H R Puff n Stuff came on instead of the game. Needless to say, we were pretty livid over the crazy television rule.
HR Puff N Stuf???.....you poor kid!🤣😂😅
Ha ha! I remember H R Puff n Stuff! The dudes that came up with that crap had to be stoned out of their minds.
@@68fmj51 Supposedly, they were
Excellent video! I remember how magical it was to be able to see the Jets and Giants play home games in the mid 70s. But as you said we never saw any other games
Is this why I am a Cowboy fan.Leaving near Cleveland in the 70's the Browns never sold out much and the Cowboys were on television every week.Thanks CBS for not showing Detroit ....Gives a whole new meaning for America's Team
This is why I hate the Cowboys. They were on television every week. Even when they suck, I gotta watch those star-headed (bleeps). Yeah, I know, I can turn them off; but I'm a football fan.
That's exactly why during the 70s, the Cowboys got the title as America's Team.
I've always hated the Cowboys, but that makes sense.
@@PredatorKingdom An old line, but still relative: How can the Cowboys be America's team if they don't wear red, white and blue?
@@tygrkhat4087 We never sucked during those days only since Jimmy Johnson left
Ah, yes. The NFL is always gonna NFL.
It's like every week you find another NBC moment.
This is fascinating. Great research and presentation for this very odd circumstance.
This brought up memories of the Heidi Game. 1968, I was 11, and I really didn't care that much about football. But there were only 3 TV channels back then. I'm watching Jets v. Raiders and then I'm watching Heidi. I just assumed that was normal at the time.
This is EXACTLY what has forced either the Jaguars or Dolphins off the air here in Orlando.
This bs still happens to this day with Browns and Bengals in Columbus. We're the only market with two in-state teams in the same conference but the NFL does not care about us because we are peasants.
How is the Cincy market different from a CA market? The Rams/ 49ers and until recently Raiders/ Chargers have the same distinction. Also Jets/ Bills and Jags/ Dolphins come to mind. I understand what you're saying that because Columbus is its own TV market that someone has to decide whether the Bengals or Browns get aired is crazy. Of course this past season hopefully you got more Bengals than Browns .....! And still that didn't save anyone from all the endless Baker Mayfield commercials....
@@jamestepera3356 Browns and Bengals are both in the same state and both in the AFC. Columbus is smack in the middle. Raiders play in Las Vegas. Jets are irrelevant in Western New York and Bills are irrelevant in NYC. In Florida, if you're halfway between Jags and Dolphins you get your own team called the Buccaneers.
I remember this game. This game actually made me believe each time I miss a Niner game they're going to lose. The only game I missed watching in 1984 was against the Steelers. Their only loss that season because I was driving down to LA. There were a few more games I missed in the early 80s that the Niners lost. I couldn't miss a game if it was very important lol 😆
As a Steelers fan, I thank you for missing that game. Was one of the few highlights of a miserable year for me
Why couldn’t you miss the Super Bowl in 1982? 😂
Ohhhh!!!...How could you jinx us for that Steelers game in '84!....That was YOUUUUU!!!... Nah just kidding, lol. We were done in by the worst pass interference call till this day maybe THE WORST in NFL history. Eric Wright was ROBBED and so were we. Should've been 19-0
@@mayhemjr.803 Exactly!
@@Armis71 I'm still pissed about that game and it's been what? Almost 40 years ago. Geez I'm OLD!😳
I like the older footage of the fans in the days before 99% of them were wearing NFL jerseys
Today, it’s just as bad. If a game runs a little long, they cut to the other game just starting. So, you miss the game winning drive with 50 seconds to go. Example, the Green Bay vs Cincinnati game a week ago, which went to OT - the network cut to the second game just starting because of contractual obligations. So you’re watching a game for three hours and don’t get to see the final moments. It’s a big disappointment.
National F u League.
That is my biggest peeve. While I feel that there should be an in market emphasis, the needs to be a common sense exemption when there is a close game that cuts into the beginning of an in market game.
Terry O’Neil said in “Game Behind the Game” that when he was at CBS he found a way to take advantage of the Washington/Baltimore market on single-header weeks. He’d show a TFKAR game on the Washington station at 1:00 ET, then show a Cowboys game on the Baltimore station at 4:00 ET. Since both CBS affiliates were available in both cities fans there could see both games.
This unofficial Official Jaguar Gator 9 historian will remind everyone you made videos on the following:
1. How in Week 16 of 1978 CBS aired both New York games at 1:00 ET. The video was mostly about Jets Coach Walt Michaels dissing the Cowboys without provocation.
2. How two Dallas businesses allowed a Cowboys home playoff game to be televised by buying the remaining unsold tickets less than 72 hours before the game.
I remember in the late 90s when the Eagles sucked that car dealerships would buy unsold tickets so the game could air. They would hand them out for free when you took a test drive and the publicity was great for the car dealer. Even at that time the rule was stupid because it took away value from advertising dollars. And to think the rule would exist several more years after that.
Groups or individuals buying remaining tickets to prevent local blackouts was not that unusual. Happened fairly frequently with the Rams and Chargers
@@dondajulah4168 Could add the Dolphins to the list, as for much of their time when they were consistent Super Bowl contenders in the 1970s and early-mid 1980s; the Dolphins had difficulty selling out the Orange Bowl.
@@dondajulah4168 In Tampa, we had nearly 7 straight years (2009-2016) of local blackouts. THAT was the biggest reason the FCC ended blackout rules
Its strange to see a home team playing in front of their home fans and few of those fans wearing their teams colors.
Which is funny because back then my dad had Eagles season tix and when you went to the Vet it was a sea of green. Must have been a 49er thing.
@@Rockhound6165 like the video said, the forty whiners did stink in the 70s so that may be why.
Yeah, it was way more common back then to see people, not in their team gear as jerseys and stuff like that didn't become widely popular until mainstream music like hip-hop start glorifying it. Michael Jordan got sports merchandising to another level in the 90s and now we see people wearing their team colors and jerseys all the time.
@@PredatorKingdom great point.
@@daBEAGLE1017 Thanks!
10:17 I like how you put in that Reggie Rucker plug in your video.
Great story and you covered the main points well. One thing, though is on the scheduling. It wasn't as easy back then to work around the schedule to change the game as you stated. In 1981, 17 of the 28 teams shared a stadium with a baseball team. Compared that to zero today. Because of this there were many constraints built into the schedule. Combine that with the fact as you stated, that only three games were not blacked out beginning with the 1974 season and ending in the 1980 season and all three were against the Rams, there was no reason for the NFL to think that would change significantly in the 1981 season to accommodate the issue when an AFC team came into two San Francisco and the Raiders were playing away.
Add to that, the schedule was hand created. No computer involved so fewer permutations to choose from.
Yeah but this game happend after baseball season
As a Cowboys fan growing up in the Detroit area I very much supported the 'Blackout Rule', what with the giant Pontiac Silverdome and the perenially lousy hometeam. I grew up seeing most of the Cowboy's games every season...lol
Ironically Dallas played at Detroit at the same time as the Cleveland-SF game.
1992, 1 season after reacing the NFC Championship Game, Lions still only sold out 1 home game that season, that was against the Cowboys. Even home games against the Oilers on Thanksgiving, Bears & nearby Browns were blacked out in Detroit as well.
You guys were spoiled
IIRC the blackout rules were within 90 miles of the stadium. When I lived in Tucson, we rarely got home Cardinal games televised and by rare I mean I don't remember watching a single Cardinal home game on TV in my 3 years living in AZ. Mostly because the team was terrible save for 1998 and that Sun Devil Stadium was a cave no one could fill.
Wow....I lived in Tucson from 92-94..as a child when my mother was stationed at Davis Monthan Air Force Base. You're absolutely right..the Cardinals home games were always blacked out(they lost most of those games anyway....lol). As a 10 year old back then I never understood why a team so close couldn't be seen on TV.
What about ESPN/TNT games? I thought the Blackout rule for Cable games was only 35 Miles.
@@raymondsmith8027 and a big reason why a majority of Tucson were Cowboy fans.
When the Raiders and Rams shared the LA market for 13 years, they were often on the same network on the same day when one of the teams had an interconference home game, which ended up not mattering because both teams were often blacked out at home in this period.
The Rams had moved to Anaheim Stadium in an effort to combat home blackouts. It initially worked, only three of 16 home games the first two years were non-sellouts. But from 1982 onward, blackouts became frequent again. For the remainder of the Rams' time in Anaheim, beginning in 1983 the Rams would have at least 5 blackouts every year. This contributed to their move to St. Louis in 1995.
The Raiders returned to Oakland in 1995, but only after the NFL schedule had been set. This caused a conflict when the Raiders and 49ers were on NBC the same day. The Bay Area joined the 49ers game in progress after the Raiders game went to OT.
This situation could have been avoided if the NFL told NBC that they could only keep one of the games that particular week. NBC likely would have chosen to keep the Patriots-49ers game as the 49ers were the defending champs. This would have sent Raiders-Chiefs to Monday night, airing on ABC in the Bay Area and Kansas City, and both teams' secondary markets, while the rest of the nation received the previously-scheduled Steelers-Dolphins game. It would have been the second time Monday Night Football aired games on a regional basis.
I remember that Patriots game. If its the one I think you're talking about, played at Stanford after the Quake.
Back in the days I was a pre-teen and wished my sorry Pats could be 1/4 the team the Niners were.
It would happen, but I never saw it coming. Never DREAMED it would happen.
It's not the one at Stanford, that was in 1989. Incidentally, it was the same stadium where the 49ers won Super Bowl XIX, where they beat a rival team of the Patriots, the Dolphins, in what was Dan Marino's only trip to the Super Bowl.
@@CS-np2oo Also, in the scenario I described, Raiders-Chiefs likely would have been called by Brent Musburger and Dick Vermeil. They were MNF's B team from 1990-95, usually only needed for Wild Card Saturday. It wasn't until after Disney bought Capital Cities, the parent of ABC and ESPN, that the latter's Sunday Night Football team became the B team for MNF, usually only calling one of the games on Wild Card Saturday, but they were called into action on Monday, October 27, 1997. The Bears-Dolphins game was moved to that night from Sunday afternoon because the Florida Marlins won the World Series in 7 games. While Frank and Al and Dan were calling the Packers-Patriots game, making Super Bowl 31 the first to get a rematch on ABC the following season, the ESPN SNF team called Bears-Dolphins, which incidentally was a rematch of a famous MNF game played at the Orange Bowl in 1985, in which the eventual Super Bowl champion Bears got their only loss of the season, ensuring the 1972 edition of the Dolphins remained the NFL's only perfect team in history.
@daniel anderson remember in 1997 when the World Series pushed Bears-Dolphins to a Monday night, it was only aired in Chicago and Miami
the rest of the country got Packers-Patriots, a rematch of the previous season's Super Bowl, the only ABC-aired game with that distinction
@daniel anderson of course it would also have been the first time MNF had regional coverage in the Sunday Ticket era, with Steelers-Dolphins being on Sunday Ticket in the primary and secondary markets of the Raiders and Chiefs, and the rest of the nation having Raiders-Chiefs on Sunday Ticket
I love love loved those kooky black out rules from back in the day. Thanks for refreshing my memory. You always put out something interesting man. Well done.
@OfficialJaguarGator9 I checked the TV history of that week, week 10 of the 1981 NFL season was a CBS doubleheader Sunday.
That makes the NFL's scheduling look even worse. One of the San Francisco Bay Area's games that week should've been put on a different network.
I remember this game. That Sunday, CBS had the doubleheader. I was living in the Fresno, CA area. KSEE ch 24 was the NBC affiliate in Fresno ( and still is to this day) aired the 49ers /Browns game at 1:pm
How about the 2007 season when the undefeated Patriots visited the Giants for the last regular season game and ended up on "every freaking" TV channel? Sports broadcasting is weird.
Its called 'ratings bonanza'. Yet the sukk wad teams get their tnf spot for all to see.
@@stevenbauer4799 Uuuuuhhh... ssuuure...
Still was a surreal moment to me, normally only stuff like presidential speeches gets broadcast on multiple channels at once.
To give some context: that game was originally an NFL Network exclusive. But then when the Patriots were on the verge of going 16-0 both NBC and CBS demanded to be able to broadcast the game. So the NFL Network compromised and allowed both to simulcast their broadcast. This is the first time since the original Super Bowl that a game was simulcasted on multiple networks.
@@DemoManMLS And because of that, you saw it on CBS (the Pats, AFC network) NBC (the home of, at the time, all over-air national games), NFL Network-planned, but also, your local team's spillover station for cable games. AND the CW station, if owned by CBS. Five channels in my city. Craziness.
Sad state of affairs when watching a few non-coordinated highlights from an NFL game 40 years ago is better than the NFL today.
I love these television history stories as the NFL's television rules were so stupid and didn't really work. Teams that had bad attendance during the 70s and 80s had long stretches like that unless the team was winning. I don't think the blackout rules really helped motivate people to go to games. A lot of the time the near sellouts had tickets bought up by sponsors or corporations to get the games aired. It's great the NFL has focused a lot more on revenue to avoid these stupid rules.
@@tspawn35 Exactly, the playoffs made no sense like not every fan can attend a playoff game so why punish those at home because the home stadium isn't sold out?
As a Lions fan during that time, we listened really closely to the updates on number of tickets sold. When it got to the deadline we were praying that some big sponsor would buy up the rest of the seats by the deadline so the blackout was lifted and we could see the game on TV. We certainly weren't going to pay $60 to see Detroit get their asses kicked live, but more than wiling to see it on television.
@@johnniehobby I'm a Lions fan myself and I know exactly what you mean because we experienced this quite a bit because the Silverdome was such a large venue and huge seating capacity that a lot of our home games would get blacked out. Like you said we would hope a big sponsor would buy up the rest of the seats by the deadline so we could see the game. Plus the Silverdome was far away unlike Ford Field and the Lions always lost so the only time it was worth going was to see Barry play and those playoff teams in the 90s.
I'm a longtime Bucs fan. When I grew up in the '80s, the only times I could count on the Bucs having a home game airing live here in the Tampa Bay Area (and due to the rules, the Orlando/Daytona/Melboune DMA, too) is when they hosted the Bears and even then, that didn't always happen. The Bucs' 1988 home game vs. the Dolphins sold out in time for our legacy NBC affiliate (WXFL, which reverted to its original WFLA-TV calls) to air the game. Having the club in my own DMA have only half of its games on TV here made absolutely no damn sense and I don't miss that asinine blackout rule.
This nearly happened on December 7 1980. The Dallas cowboys were at Oakland to take on the raiders in front of sellout crowd. Meanwhile across the bay in san Francisco. The 49ers played the new orleans saints at candlestick park in front of a half empty stadium. Could you imagine had the 49ers would had sold out that game. CBS sports would have been in a real tough situation on which game to show. Thank heaven for CBS sports the niner game didn't sell out.
The 49ers Saints game that day saw the biggest comeback win in NFL history at the time by the 49ers who came back from 28 points down.
@@mayduck1 they were down 35-7 at halftime I think.
And gave my Jets the opportunity to be the only team to lose to the Saints that year. That game was blacked out in NY, not because of a sellout rather CBS thought another game would be of more interest. You can check me on that.
@@mayhemjr.803 you are exactly right on the Saints having a 35-7 halftime lead only to lose 38-35.The next day another historic TV event occured as on MNF Howard Cosell announced that John Lennon had been killed and as a Dol-Fan watched the Dolphins come back and beat the Patriots in OT but that win did not help me feel any better after hearing the bad news from Cosell.
@@mayduck1 this was the game that convinced Bill Walsh that Montana was the future and Steve DeBerg was a bum. He soon exiled DeBerg to Denver and the rest is history
When did fans start wearing jerseys to the games?no one in the crowd has one on.
Late 80s early 90s
Yeah, like the late 80s and early 90s, it got more popular in the mainstream through music videos like hip-hop. NWA wearing Raiders gear helped and Michael Jordan got sports merchandising to a whole other level.
So BASICALLY this game rates a 39.6 and BOTH the Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers should just SPIKE the football into the ground on EVERY single OFFENSIVE play!!!!!
Who started this monstrosity and when does it end!
Again my father's story is true. He told me about this one day and I dismissed it was a made up for the moment.
Back in the losing days of Buffalo Bills, rarely was there ever a televised home game in the Buffalo market. I remember in 1986 the Bills home opener sold out since it was Jim Kelly's season debut. That was the first time in 3 years a Bills home game sold out in time for local TV coverage. I do remember a time in 1982 there was a Bills home game televised on a Toronto French speaking tv station. It was perfect, muted tv and tune in radio
It happened on december 14 1986 in Los Angeles. Rams hosted the dolphins, and Raiders hosted the Chiefs, NBC showed dolphins vs. Rams. I went to the Rams-dolphins game, and recorded the game.
I remember stories of Washington fans driving to Philadelphia, and checking into hotels to watch their team’s games on the Philly CBS affiliate.
Why didn't they just get the NFL Sunday Ticket package?
@@standarddef8769 wasnt around then
@@standarddef8769 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Browns beat the Superbowl champions. Too bad they were 5-11.
We used to have a similar situation in Baltimore with the Colts and Redskins. We had a situation that could've been extra crazy.
In 1976 The Colts and Redskins made the playoffs. The Colts, winners of the AFC East and the no.2 seed at 11-3 had a date with the Steelers, winners of the AFC Central at 10-4 on a 9 game winning streak. The Redskins were matched up against the Vikings NFC CENTRAL Champs. The Vikings were the home team. The schedule worked out because the Redskins played the early 12:30 game on Saturday, and the Colts hosted on Sunday but @ 2pm est. The problem could've been if the Redskins would've won the NFC East we could've had a I95 disaster traffic situation as both teams draw from some of the same places and the Redskins games were always sold out would've been ok televisionwise, but the Colts would not. The Steelers playoff game was "not" a sellout and was shown @11:30 pm on the NBC affiliate. The Colts lost as the Steelers straightened that horseshoe up, beating them down 40-14, and to add insult and a huge irony to it all, a small plane was buzzing the Stadium. It flew in raised up, stalled and crashed in the upper deck, less than 10 mins after the final gun. No one was seriously injured, and the biggest reason why was because the Colts stunk so bad most of the (day before the game sell out) crowd was either in the parking lot or well on their way home. Usually back in those days when the Colts had big wins or losses the crowd would stay and socialize, but that day it was bad and it saved some lives because of it. btw...the pilot got off basically with a slap on the wrist.
I remember the whole DMV was excited for the chance of a Baltimore vs Washington Super Bowl at the Rose Bowl. The beginning of the Weekend was awesome, everyone was so hyped, but then 3:30 the Redskins were out, and 24 hrs later the Colts were gone and the whole Mid-Atlantic was bummin'.
Very interesting thanks
Life of a Rams fan in Pacific Northwest
Thank you for showing the safety, I was wondering about it.
This was very interesting, especially in that I was a Browns' fan in Kent OH at the time and never knew about the controversy. It was televised as normal back to Cleveland so I was happy. :-)
On that day, The NFL would have handled it better if they spiked the ball on every play.
I watched this game on tape delay at 11:30 pm in the SF Bay Area. We were informed that the game was NOT sold out 72 hours before the game. It MIGHT have been sold out at game time, but we were told that it was NOT sold out 72 hours before game time.
Also the statement: "Rules are rules, and there's nothing we can do about it," doesn't fly. "Rules are made to be broken," and that's why NFL officials blow so many calls.
I can assure you, that the reason you give for the 49er game not being televised, is NOT the reason we were given in the Bay Area in 1981. The game was televised that same day on KRON-TV channel 4 (NBC) at 11:30 pm, and I saw it. Guess what? I was the only one watching the game. No one else showed up! No one. I was living in Ehrman Hall in Berkeley, California as I was in my first year of graduate school at UC Berkeley. No other resident of the hall showed up to watch the game.
The 49ers didn't even score a touchdown in the game.
Remember this very well. Good video.
I see that Cardinals/Chiefs and Bills fans had the same experience I did growing up in Mass in the 1980s. I actually grew up in the same town as the Patriots in the 1980s and I can't remember the Patriots being on TV more than a handful of times in the regular season. It was weird having all the games on TV being from New York or Miami every week.
I just discovered that even in '85, there were some Pats blackouts here and there, something I didn't expect. Here in the Tampa Bay Area, it seemed that I saw more of the Dolphins than the Bucs when I was growing up in the '80s.
I was born in 81, my first season becoming a Pats fan was 1988 at age 7. I remember those were tough years until Parcells, Bledsoe and Kraft came in. I remember seeing all the games on TV in 94. The best season they had since 86 at the time. Before that you were lucky to see a game on TV. I knew so many kids growing up who were 49ers, Cowboys, Dolphins and Bills fans. When the Giants or Redskins came to town they took over Foxboro Stadium.
I just looked it up, from what I found on a couple of old forum posts the last Patriots blackout game was December 26th 1993 vs. Indianapolis.
The original poster posted this on Oct 7, 2006
The last time a home Pats game was not aired on local TV was December 26, 1993 against Indy. They gained 257 yards on 58 carries against the Indianapolis Colts in a 38-0 victory. (Note: the Pats rushing totals last week (238 yards) was the best since this game.)
I recall watching this game at my parents house in northern MA. We would disconnect cable and point the antenna towards Portland ME to watch any game not on in the Boston market. We had lots of interference but it filled our need for Patriots football. The blackout rules only impact stations within a 75 mile radius of the stadium. It was freezing cold and they dominated every aspect of the game. Leonard Russell had 100 yards rushing in the first half alone.
The Pats sold out the next week against Miami. Many people thought this would be the last game in New England since Orthwein was threatening to move the team to St Louis. We won in overtime on a Bledsoe - Timpson hook up. The Pats win knocked the Fins out of the playoffs.
It would be announced a couple of weeks later that Bob Kraft won the bidding to buy the Pats. They immediately sold out on a season ticket basis. From this point on, the Pats have sold out every game.
@@IcedEarth66 Orthwein wanted to be released from the Foxboro Stadium lease early, but Kraft, said lease's owner, wouldn't let Orthwein off the hook and the rest is history.
@@marcus813 he did you're right, Kraft owned concessions and the parking lots too. He wanted to buy the team around 85, then they went on their run. In the book the Dynasty it's covered along with the "flirtation" with Hartford.
There is actually a St. Louis Stallions hat in the Patriots Hall of Fame. The team which the Pats would of become if they moved.
The Immaculate Reception game was blacked out in Pittsburgh. Local television was allowed to show the game… at midnight after it had already been played.
Just thought I add that.
That '81 Browns team was a huge disappointment. It was the season after their Central Division Championship season in '80 when they were known as the Kardiac Kids. They finished a disappointing 5-11 in '81, but among their 5 wins were victories over both Super Bowl teams that year, the Bengals and eventual Super Bowl Champion 49ers.
This has been said before, but the most important thing about a television broadcast is the ability to be able to watch it. What a mishap for sure.
"Baseball configuration"; multi-sport stadiums were another idea that was due to happen, and I don't think it was completely terrible, but I also feel it's a concept which its time had definitely passed it by (a "Universal" anything is no guarantee of a solid product to begin with, but it does seem more convenient & a money saver, which may sacrifice quality; there's a price to pay regardless).
Not only was this game here the 49ers last loss, but it was also the last win for the 1981 Browns (a disappointing follow-up to their Cardiac season of 1980; they didn't have the same magic).
From an ethical and utilitarian standpoint every stadium should be multi-use (since American sports are essentially subsidized hobbies for the ultra-wealthy). But dear lord did they suck. Just hideous abominations from a sporting standpoint and eyesores from an aesthetic one
@@bubbafug00gle51 Good point; there's concerts, political conventions, and various demolition derby/tractor pull/circus events to consider as well.
They just don't work. Baseball fields are way too big to cram into a football stadium (L.A. Coliseum); and, when you try football in a baseball stadium, the seats are too far away (Metropolitan Stadium), or it ruins the architecture (Anaheim Stadium).
@@davidlafleche1142 I think with modern technology you could pull one of. If you can roll a field out of the stadium to get sun the way they do for the Cardinals or have retractable rooves I don't see why you couldn't have configurable seating. It probably won't ever happen unless an ownership group is allowed to own an MLB and NFL franchises in the same city. I say this because billionaires wouldn't be billionaires if they were willing to share.
"the most important thing about a television broadcast is the ability to be able to watch it"
Yeah, if nobody can watch it it's not really "broad", it's just a cast... and everyone who has had one of those knows how much they itch
Matt Bahr kicking a field goal to make it 15-13 visiting team at candlestick happened 10 years later in the NFC Championship Game. Maybe the football gods didn’t want to the home viewers in SF to witness that twice.
It did occur again! (kinda) Houston Oilers Wild Card Playoff Game vs. the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park at Rich Stadium. This was the game where the Bills fell behind, but were able to come back and win in overtime. The game was not sold out within 72 hours at the time, but was by game time, yet the league would not make an exception. No one in the local TV market could watch the game live, and the NBC affiliate in Buffalo, WGRZ-TV wanted to play the game back on videotape after midnight, but both NBC and the NFL refused.
Reggie Rucker!
I was curious when the last time the Patriots had a blackout game. I found this post on an old message board. It was 12/26/93 against Indy. I became a fan in 88 at age 7, and remember barely seeing any home games because we were so bad.
Original post from Oct 2006.
The last time a home Pats game was not aired on local TV was December 26, 1993 against Indy. They gained 257 yards on 58 carries against the Indianapolis Colts in a 38-0 victory. (Note: the Pats rushing totals last week (238 yards) was the best since this game.)
I recall watching this game at my parents house in northern MA. We would disconnect cable and point the antenna towards Portland ME to watch any game not on in the Boston market. We had lots of interference but it filled our need for Patriots football. The blackout rules only impact stations within a 75 mile radius of the stadium. It was freezing cold and they dominated every aspect of the game. Leonard Russell had 100 yards rushing in the first half alone.
The Pats sold out the next week against Miami. Many people thought this would be the last game in New England since Orthwein was threatening to move the team to St Louis. We won in overtime on a Bledsoe - Timpson hook up. The Pats win knocked the Fins out of the playoffs.
It would be announced a couple of weeks later that Bob Kraft won the bidding to buy the Pats. They immediately sold out on a season ticket basis. From this point on, the Pats have sold out every game.
Having grown up a Pats fan, it was a rare event that we could watch a home game until Drew Bledsoe came along.
I remimber this game. I had to listen to it on the radio
This also happened in the final week of the 1978 regular season when CBS could not air a Cowboys-Jets game from a sold out Shea Stadium because the Giants were on the road that week.
I suspect here the problem was, had the NFL granted a waiver for this instance, several other NFL teams might very well have sued over that fearing the NFL would have opened the door to more such situations, especially the Jets and Giants out of fear fans would stay home. What changed this starting with 2000 was a few instances in the late 1990's when in Week 1 or 2, FOX was allowed to show a doubleheader game in markets where a team was playing in a home sellout because there was no game on CBS at 4:00 PM due to the men's final of the US Open Tennis Championships (unlike in the past when CBS had the NFC package and did have games air in some markets at 4:00 instead of the US Open, that was done away with when CBS got the AFC package in 1998).
9:22 I don't think the NFL expected San Francisco to be this good, per what you said about their playoff drought.
I have been a Washington Redskins fan since 1972. I watched the NFC Championship game on television, it was not blacked out in the Washington, DC area. I live in Northern Virginia. We beat the Cowboys 26 - 3.
This isn't the first time 49ers fans were denied watching a game the were already entitled to watch. In 1970, the 49ers were playing the Raiders in Oakland to end the season. Al Davis enforced the blackout to the anger of 49er fans who were denied their right of watching a 49er road game. This despite the fact that, earlier in the season when the Giants played the Jets at Shea Stadium, the Jets gave WCBS permission to televise the game so Giants fans could see their team play a road game.
Al Davis was the ultimate shithead. Just glad to see the team suck on a consistent basis for the last 25 years of his life
@@dondajulah4168 That should be said of Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys being dead for 23 years because of brain cancer because in 1973 Carl was furious and expecting too much of Brian Wilson to attend their father Murry's funeral because of Murry being physically abusive toward Brian it is because Brian Wilson is still alive O.K!!!!
Ah yes, the game Madden bitched Phil Villapiano out for saying "49ers? We're more concerned about our air hockey tournament"😂😂😂😂😂
Niners won 38-7
I also watched every Redskins game in the 1972 season. None of them were blacked out.
Another option back in 1981 which doesn't exist today is if you wanted to watch the San Francisco 49ERS live you could drive about 80-90 miles to Sacramento California to watch it on live tv
Why does it seem like when it comes to NFL games and television oops, it seems to be NBC having those problems. Heidi Game (11/17/1968), Heidi Game 2 where NBC affiliates were told of a change 6 minutes before the changed from CLE-WSH to NE-BAL (12/19/1971) and now this game (11/15/1981)
The Heidi Game technically was an AFL game...
I’m a lifelong 49ers fan born & raised in San Francisco ( Haight/ Ashbury) & remember this game & the local blackout. It was suppose to be on channel 4 KRON in the city. Fortunately the NFL has dumped such a archaic, obsolete & pretty stupid policy. 1981 was a hell of a ride & a whole lot of fun for the 49ers Faithful ... Super Bowl Champs!! 26-21 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XVI!! Go 49ers ...then & now!!
I was born at St. Mary's right near the Panhandle blocks from Haight Ashbury🙂
@@mayhemjr.803 I know the area well...!
@@mayhemjr.803 I was born @ the French Hospital on 6th Ave & Anza near Geary Blvd. Richmond District. “The City” is great!
@@kylecurry577 it's not as great as it used to be when I lived there, but it will always be home to me
@@mayhemjr.803 as they say home is where the heart is...
The blackout rule was stupid
So why the hell is mlb still doing blackouts ridiculous!!
Living in NW Ohio farm country with a rotating antenna...we never had to deal with a black out of those Detroit Lions .
I’m a lions fan... I didn’t know we had a team until Barry came to town... we had blackouts until then.. the silver dome (RIP) had 93k capacity; never got sold out
Me too. Living in mid michigan I was forced to watch the Cleveland Browns every Sunday as the Lions were blacked out almost always in the late 70's and early 80's. Fortunately, the Browns had exciting teams then and I became a fan of sorts.
I expected something like that to happen to the Jets. 😆
It was typical back then to not see fans wearing team gear or jerseys as that stuff didn't start becoming a thing until the late 80s or early 90s. Hip-hop groups like NWA really started the fashion culture of wearing Raiders gear or black & white gear like Chicago White Sox caps which bought that stuff to the mainstream and obviously Michael Jordan taking team merchandising to the next level.
This still happens somewhat annually in the DC market when the Ravens and Commanders are on the same network at the same time, disenfranchising the fair amount of Ravens fans in the DC DMA. There are no Commander fans in Baltimore.
I grew up in Miami at a time where the Dolphins were always good. But the Orange Bowl was so big they rarely sold out the stadium by the 72 hour deadline. It was common to have Dolphins playoff games blacked out in the 70s and 80s
That's weird, because the Dolphins were a pretty good team back then
@@mayhemjr.803 yeah it’s just that the Orange Bowl was so big and the blackout rule so strict. There also wasn’t easy access to tickets in those pre internet days. You had the OB ticket office or a handful of offsite ticket offices in those days. So at the time if 79,200 of the 80,000 tickets were sold at the 72 hour cut off, the game was blacked out. Dolphins home games, including playoffs we’re rarely on TV
Are there any broadcasting blunders from out of market affiliates?
0:17 - I watched this just to see the circa 1980 on-screen graphics! Wow, they were now in COLOR! A far cry from the fuzzy white lettering of just a few years before.
Interesting that the worst broadcasts nearly always involved the Browns.......
Hope u had your prototype vcrs for the tape delay broadcast!
As a pats fan our blackouts were usually 5-6 games a year until Kraft bought the team. In fact the last blackout game was vs Indianapolis in Dec 1993 in which we sold out the game but not till it was too late.
nfl black out rules stated that if a game isn't sold out in home market 72 hours beforehand it had to be blacked out in local markets within 100 miles. Now its a different ball game for ratings worth. And lions had many mnf games at the silverdome blacked out even tho they sold out because of that rule. Local abc station always put on 'the longest yard' (not the sandler cr-ap) instead...'GAME BALL'.
Can you do a video about the no punt game between the 49ers and the Buffalo Bills
He needs to do the Browns/Bills game where Derek Anderson threw for 17 yards and won the game.
Didn't see that one, but I do remember the Packers-Bears no punt game...hadn't realized neither team had punted at all til the 2 minute warning.
@@Phateagle262 good but the Bills game bills 49ers game had no punts that days Jim Kelly vs Steve Young Jerry Rice Andre Reed Thurman Thomas Bruce Smith and many other other Hall of Famers were in this game
I remember watching that game when I was 9 years old.....the 1992 Season.....that was a great game.
I was actually at that game!!! The Browns beat the Niners 15 to 12 on a rainy day!!!
Growing up in RI in the 1970s/80s, the Patriots were always blacked out. They only started to sell out during the 85 Super Bowl season vs the Bears.
Yes, the Boston and Providence TV stations couldn’t show the games.
The Browns were one of the worst teams in 1981, finishing at 5-11. They finished 2-6 on the road. Ironically their only 2 road wins were against the 2 super bowl teams of that year.
Funny, I was just thinking about when I lived in Portland during the 1992 season, where the ABC station chose to air the Monday Night Football game on a one-hour delay. I forget the rationale stated at the time, mostly because I was too hung up with the futility of knowing the games were shown live in some sports bars while I was still only 20. Doubt this bit of broadcasting folly is worthy of a video, but I thought I’d chuck out this reminder of how it was done in those heady days before the Internet took over our lives.
As a kid growing up in Metro Detroit I started to become a die-hard Lions fan in 1980 when I was 9. Unfortunately even if the Lions were good or bad most home games were blacked out because the silverdome at that time had the biggest capacity in the NFL with almost 81000 seats. The silverdome always had crowds if 70,000 to 75,000 a game but were blacked out locally. It really upset us fans to see the Lions have the biggest crowd of any given Sunday and be blacked out. A lot of the other stadiums has a capacity t 60,000 to 70,000 and be sold out and in TV locally. I never understood why the NFL couldn't make the black out rules different. Maybe any stadium that sells a minimum of 65,000 in time if the deadline be televised locally. Then when the Raiders moved to LA and played at the Coliseum they had a capacity of over 90,000. Football finally got smart and put football on tv localt sellout or not in 2014 or 2015, by that time it really didn't matter in Detroit because the Lions moved back downtown to Ford Field where capacity is just around 65,000. Since 02 playing in Ford Field u think only like ten games were blacked out and that's the time frame of the Lions going 0-16 so who wants to spend the money on that type of team. I think it's great the NFL came to their senses and dropped the blackout. Most families can't afford going to 8 regular season home games cuz it's not on TV. Now young fans can watch their favorite respective teams every week and the NFL and the owners are still cashing in. Even with no blackout rules each NFL team owner is profiting a hundred million dollars a year. So yeah they can afford it.
7:15 Describing The Jets and Giants in 2020 and 2021. 🤣😂🤣😂😅😄
I saw "stupidst NFL broadcast in NBC history" and assumed it was the Heidi game.
I live in CA and they still air Raider games before they'll air a Chargers game