The most enlightened - and confusing - television arrangement in sports involves the NFL.
Consider tomorrow's widely anticipated New England Patriots-Indianapolis Colts game. The CBS telecast will be aired in every U.S. market but two, Houston and Cleveland.
It will be blacked out in Cleveland because the Browns will be at home against the Seattle Seahawks, and home-market telecasts take priority to the exclusion of all others.
However, in Seattle, viewers will be able to choose between the Patriots-Colts and Seahawks-Browns because the two games will be aired on different networks. (Fox will have the Seahawks-Browns game.)
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In Houston, viewers will not have that choice because the Texans' game against the Raiders in Oakland will be carried on CBS, which also will have the Pats-Colts game. Since two CBS telecasts can't air at the same time, the hometown Texans' game will take precedence.
But, in Oakland, despite the Raiders playing at home, the Pats-Colts game will be carried because the Texans-Raiders game did not sell out. When there is no sellout, the home team has the right to black out its telecast. In the absence of a local telecast, another NFL telecast is allowed to come in.
For Canadian viewers, the Pats-Colts game will be seen on CBS affiliates as well as Rogers Sportsnet East and West, CITY-TV in Vancouver and Omni TV in Toronto.
The NFL's broadcasting rules are complicated, but the league has the most egalitarian system of sharing TV wealth.
The billions of dollars paid by Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN, NFL Network, Sportsnet, CTV, TSN and RDS is distributed equally among the 32 clubs, each of which earns slightly more than $100-million (U.S.) a year from TV.
If an NFL franchise came to Toronto, it would participate in that system, although the league could split off the team's package of 16 regular-season games and sell them to a Canadian network.
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