NFL owners voted at their annual meeting this morning to require teams to charge season-ticket holders for playoff tickets only when the game is set, ending some franchises’ approach to sending out invoices as early as November. The Packers did that last year when the club was out of the playoff picture. The team went on a late run and made the playoffs on the final weekend, complicating the playoff ticket sale because so many fans had chosen not to buy in November. The game nearly did not sell out, causing a PR headache for the league. “Season-ticket members shall not be charged for the cost of postseason home game tickets until the club is certain to host the associated postseason game, unless the season ticket member elects to be charged sooner,” the resolution, which passed, said. Owners also agreed to extend for another five years the policy allowing clubs to lower the number of stadium seats that count toward the TV blackout policy. The seating capacity policy was in effect for '12 and '13, and now will run through '18. The seating count policy has allowed teams to more easily sell out games to avoid local TV blackouts. Only two games were blacked out last year. The drawback for teams is ticket revenue from seats that are not counted for capacity, but are then sold, is then shared at a higher rate with the league than for seats sold that are counted toward blackouts.
