Redskins - Buccaneers Blacked Out Locally

Despite taking many, many actions this offseason and despite looking like an improved team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers continue to not reach the threshold of ticket sales to avoid blackouts. After seeing both preseason games and the home opener blacked out, the Bucs now have their second home game blacked out as well. The team has to sell just 85% of its general admission tickets to avoid a blackout, but they've been unable to do so this year.

With the game blacked out, most households within a 100 to 125 mile radius will be unable to watch the game live on TV. While the official blackout radius is 75 miles, if a signal penetrates that radius its entire signal will be blacked out, which leads to this extended blackout area.

Last season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers avoided blackouts on three games. One of them by playing in London, while the other two avoided blackouts by virtue of being on national TV. The Bucs only have no nationally televised home games this season, so we could see an entire season's worth of blackouts this season - unless the Bucs start winning games and building excitement in the area even more so than they've done so far.

Don't think this is a problem unique to Tampa, however, as several teams around the league are struggling to sell tickets. The Chargers and Bills have seen games blacked out, and more teams appear to be buying up tickets to avoid blackouts. The Bucs stopped this practice after the 2009 season.