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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

I just want to watch local games on my HD antenna. Being locked out of a Patriots MNF game, forcing me to either go to a bar or watch an illegal stream, is simply absurd.

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The NFL eliminated the "black-out" rule back in 2014. All home games are available on local TV.

Local games are simulcast over the air.

Seconding this; if a game in on MNF check your local ABC feed.

You can watch if the game is sold out

Which a patriots game will be.

Why is this absurd? It's expecting you to pay for their product.

You do realize that he's paying, right? They force you to go to the game physically to watch it (unless the game is sold out), which IMO is pretty unreasonable.

Really? How much did the person watching at home pay?

It's not absurd. I don't like it, but it's not absurd.

Not sure if you're familiar with blackout rules. [0] It's complex but basically, even if you have paid for cable or for NFL GamePass (online), you can still be blacked out for local games.

It's absurd because you paid for the games and you should be entitled to the same content whether you're in Michigan or California. Even if you haven't paid, it's absurd because it reduces exposure to the local football team, which can only hurt them in the long run.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_telev...

watching it over a regular broadcast is paying for it. you're watching ads.

You're also watching ads on any paid steam.

No the point is to entice ticket sales. If the game is sold out its broadcast..

Don't forget that many of the stadiums are at least partially funded by taxes.

I think the Patriots might be the one exception to that.

Nope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillette_Stadium

Did you miss the below quote from the linked article?

"...After the Hartford proposal fell through, Robert Kraft paid for 100% of the construction costs, a rare instance of an NFL owner privately financing the construction of a stadium."

Concurrently announced was a new road to access the stadium from U.S. Route 1, and an additional 3,000 parking spaces to accommodate the increased number of fans.. In other words the stadium is only part of the total construction costs. But, politically indirect costs where an easy sell.

I'm going out on a limb to speculate that a stadium costs more to build than a parking lot...

The patriots stadium construction was owner funded.

"After the Hartford proposal fell through, Robert Kraft paid for 100% of the construction costs, a rare instance of an NFL owner privately financing the construction of a stadium."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillette_Stadium]

Concurrently announced was a new road to access the stadium from U.S. Route 1 so not quite.

That doesn't mean the city paid for it. If you start a new land development to put up houses, you often cover all the costs associated with putting in roads and signs. Not saying that's what happened here but one sentence saying a road was put up doesn't indicate paid for by taxes.

Sports blackout rules are pretty much the definition of absurd.

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