I need help understanding blackouts

[Spatch]

I live in Northeastern Pennsylvania in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton market. Tonight I sit down to watch the Philadelphia Flyers I have the dvr all set to record because I know my son will be pulling me away from the game. I walk into the room 5 minutes late to find the dvr not recording, so I pull up the guide and I see that the game is blackout on FOXNY. I search through the guide and find that it isn't blacked out NHL Center Ice.
So I look for the Pittsburg Penguins game, it's also blacked out but not on NHL Center Ice.
Now I can not get either team on any local channels, so what is with the blackouts. More important I was planning on ordering Center Ice but will they be blacked out on center ice after the free preview?
Please help? I don't want to order center ice to find that I can't get my Flyers games. Somebody please give me a clue.

 

[bpickell]

I have never ordered a sports package before, however if my understanding is correct. They cannot air those in your area. Blackouts are lame excuses to try to get people into the stands. They feel if they can't watch them on TV, they will then purchase tickets.

 

[uWILLknow]

-- Blackouts restrictions DO apply with the NHL center ice package. Make sure u give the CSR your zip code and have them check and see what teams will be blacked out in your zip. The truth is Dish has no say so whatsoever when it comes to blackouts. The teams themselves have a sort of "jurisdiction" over specific areas and they say which area gets what blackout. Like in Chicago for example, a sporting event that would have a Chicago local team playing will be blacked out to Chi-town residents at the beginning of the game then once the stadium is sold out, they un-black it out ! Also alot of times, a game will be blacked out on ESPN for example, but it might be available on a local channel. They want to force the viewer to tune to a specific channel to watch the event, all for advertising purposes. The advertisers flip out if all their money is wasted because the viewer has more than one channel option to watch it on. They wanna make sure they "target" the people they are aiming to sell to !

I personally think it is lame; but I am really not a sports fan, so I don't get the whole big deal. But in the end, you can escalate your call to Dish customer service and get all the way to a manager and they will tell you the same thing: Dish network does not set and cannot "unblackout" an event for a customer.

 

[Barry Erick]

Pittburgh should not be blacked out in this market. Philadelphia is covered for blackouts in this market, called a Flyers local market. This means that the NHL believes that people from this area (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) do travel to games and buy tickets. I know many who do from here (I am also in WB/S area - Dallas) and that is why the blackout.

 

[Spatch]

But that isn't how blackouts are supposed to work. It isn't if the game is sold out or not. It is if a local channel or locally carried channel carries it.
Now, Adelphia cable locally carries Comcast which shows the majority of the Flyers games. Dish doesn't carry comcast so why would it be blacked out on MSG. Also, why would it be blacked out on msg but not on center ice.

 

[ITK]

heres what tiks me off about blackouts. living in the spokane DMA with the NBA package they would BO all sonic home games, no biggie cause im a blazer fan, hence the nba package so i get all there games. but even when the sonics played in portland they still blacked it out and its a 5 hr drive o portland or a 4+ hour drive to seattle...what a bitch.

 

[Van]

eh, its just sports, hehehe