• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 5, 2013

Free local sports programming may not be around much longer.

The blackout rules for TV stations were originally put in place to protect sports teams from the vagaries of being unable to sell out local stadiums. The rules forced rabid sports fans to pay big dollars to see teams in person.

The FCC no longer wants to oversee such rules. So the marketplace may rule instead. Without FCC blackout rules, teams and leagues could still negotiate their own agreements with networks and stations concerning what’s on the air or not.

Teams or leagues might see the opportunity to make more money by selling a variety of national and local TV rights, including games imported into specific markets.

But the National Association of Broadcasters worries, for example, that importing another signal of a Detroit-Arizona game into the Detroit market would hurt the local Detroit station that is broadcasting the game.

It’s hard to argue with supply-and-demand. How many different versions of a sporting event should be available to viewers.

Will the end of the blackout rules force viewers to buy separate channels in order to see their favorite teams?  The truth is that consumers are already paying for sports -- through whatever cable, satellite or telco package they get.

Shouldn’t viewers who rely on over-the-air signals get local sports for free? Not really. Maybe it’s our right to get news, weather and emergency information. Maybe health care. But sports entertainment? How about a right to overall entertainment?

If everything truly gets offered through extra pay services -- and people refuse to pay for them  – that’s capitalization at work. Should that come to pass, sports leagues and teams will figure out a way to get audiences – perhaps by offering some free transmission or streaming with advertising attached.

If CBS believes it can charge extra for cable systems to carry “NCIS,” or NBC for “The Voice,” or Fox for “X Factor,” maybe they can. If the shows aren’t that valuable, they’d find out pretty fast.