Chicago May Face Blackout Of Some Bears Games This Season

Some Bears home games this season at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, IL, "could be blacked out on television in the Chicago area — something that hasn't happened since the NFL went to its current policy of blacking out non-sellouts in the home market some three decades ago," according to John Jackson of the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, who wrote, "There's a chance one, two, or maybe even three games might not sell out." Jackson: "The problem has surfaced mainly because the Bears didn't force season-ticket holders from last season to buy tickets for the season. With round-trip game-day travel times of five to seven hours from Chicago and its suburbs, the team just didn't think it was fair to take away season tickets from fans who simply couldn't make the trip to Champaign." The "other issue is determining what a sellout will be. Memorial Stadium seats 75,000, but capacity for Bears games will be significantly less. ... It's conceivable that capacity could be as low as 60,000, but there's a catch. Capacity has to be the same for every game, so you can't call a sellout 60,000 for Detroit and then sell 70,000 tickets for Green Bay" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 7/5).