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San Diego Chargers receive 24-hour extension to lift TV blackout

The San Diego Chargers' preseason game against the San Francisco 49ers will be on local television, or at least we can assume it will be after the team was granted a 24-hour extension from the league to lift the local TV blackout.

Expect to see a lot of Brad Sorensen on Thursday.
Expect to see a lot of Brad Sorensen on Thursday.
Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODA

I kind of thought that the team would do whatever it had to to make sure that neither of the preseason games before Mike McCoy's first regular season game as the San Diego Chargers head coach were blacked out. It appears that thought was correct.

The San Diego Chargers received a 24-hour extension to sell enough tickets to lift the local television blackout of Thursday night's game between the Chargers and San Francisco 49ers at Qualcomm Stadium. The game kicks off at 7 p.m. PT. The team has until 7 p.m. PT Tuesday to sell approximately 1,100 general tickets.

I've come to assume that these blackouts are simply a scare tactic to sell more tickets and reduce the team's overhead. The NFL probably contacts the team, the team says something to the effect of "We'll buy whatever tickets are left after the 24-hour extension" and then they put out this press release in hopes of selling a few tickets to fans that don't already have tickets and can't possibly watch the game on tape delay or on an online stream.

Either way, expect a post from me tomorrow saying that the blackout has been lifted. That's how these things work, even when it's a meaningless game where the starters won't play on a Thursday evening.

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