Thursday, December 3, 2009

Dark match?

There hasn’t been a Browns game blacked out in Cleveland since 1995, but the last one I remember was probably around 1987. It was a matchup against Oakland, and since my family didn’t have cable (pay TV stimulated the tingly, bulbous parts, my father explained sternly), I squintingly tried to watch the game through the ant races of static on Channel 2 out of Toledo.

The broadcast came and went; I soon became frustrated and shut off the television. As annoyed and disappointed as I was about missing my beloved Browns that day, I can’t say I’m feeling those emotions this week as darkness hangs over the upcoming contest against San Diego. What I’m feeling, unfortunately, is nothing at all, and perhaps I’m not alone. I wonder if the looming blackout is the surest sign that people are as sick of this organization’s everlasting on-field struggles and tri-annual front-office upheavals as I am.

All is not lost for those who want to torture themselves for three hours this Sunday, however. Per Tony Grossi of The Plain Dealer.
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The Browns were granted a 24-hour extension by the NFL to avert their first local television blackout for Sunday's game against the San Diego Chargers.

The Browns would not give a specific number of tickets that need to be sold for the blackout to be lifted. They reported "a few thousand tickets" remained. The NFL frequently will extend the 72-hour blackout deadline if the home team is close enough to realistically have a chance to sell out the game.

The remaining tickets must be sold by Friday at 4:05 p.m. for the blackout to be lifted. Otherwise, it would not be seen on TV within a 75-mile radius of Cleveland.

The Browns have not had a game blacked out on local TV since they returned to the NFL in 1999.

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I’d guess that some beneficent soul will step forward and buy up the remaining seats. Even so, it seems that the Browns ongoing ineptitude, in combination with a slowly recovering economy, has taken the sheen out of Cleveland’s so-called “Teflon franchise.” Maybe after 11 years of this mess, people really are mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take it anymore.

It’s about time.