The speculation that's lasted for over a week, the same hope that some have been begging for, finally came to fruitition on Thursday. If you're a Bengals fan that lives within a 75-mile radius of Paul Brown Stadium, then you will not be watching the Cincinnati Bengals on television. Unable to sell the stadium out by the NFL mandated deadline of 72 hours before kickoff, the Bengals home game against the Buffalo Bills will be blacked out locally.
That means Cincinnati's sellout streak is likely to end at 57 games -- the team could still theorhetically sellout if there's a mad race at the ticket window but that wouldn't change local television programming from broadcasting informericals. Really, the NFL should do something about that. If the local market game is blacked out on CBS, why not give that market another game on CBS? Or better yet, why not kill the outdated idea of black outs in this day and age?
The last time the Bengals were blacked out was November 9, 2003 against the Houston Texans.
The black out includes everyone within a 75-mile radius from the stadium and it also includes the NFL Ticket. So even though you pay enormous amounts of money for every NFL game, you'll be blacked out if you're within 75 miles of the stadium.
So what will you be doing on Sunday afternoon from 1pm until 4pm?