Raiders adopt 85 percent threshold for home ticket sales

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NAPA -- The Raiders sold out every home game last season for the first time since returning to Oakland in 1995 and thus, there were no local television blackouts.That trend should continue in 2012 as the Raiders have agreed to the 85 percent threshold option to televise games in their local market, CSNCalifornia.com has learned.
As such, the Raiders merely have to sell 85 percent of their tickets to home games to ensure no blackout. The Coliseum's current listed capacity is 63,132, the second-smallest in the NFL, ahead only of the Chicago Bears' Soldier Field and its 61,500.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy recently told NFL.com that lowering the threshold affects how revenue is shared."More revenue than usual will be shared with the visiting clubs for tickets sold above that base number," McCarthy said."It's optional if clubs want to do this and would only affect a few teams. Last year, one 6 percent of games were blacked out in a local market. This figure is down significantly from 15 to 20 years ago when 25 to 30 percent of games were routinely blacked out."The Raiders have had 57 televised home games and 79 blackouts the past 17 seasons.Plus, while average game attendance in the NFL as a whole is down 4.5 percent since 2007, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Raiders' attendance has gone up the past two seasons.In 2009, Oakland averaged 44,284, which was the lowest since the team returned after 13 seasons in Los Angeles. In 2010, the Raiders averaged 46,431 and last season, they averaged 59,242, their third-highest average home crowd in 12 years.Only the average crowds of 62,130 in 1999, when every home game was blacked out, and 60,636 in the Super Bowl season of 2002 have been higher.The Raiders took over their own ticket sales in 2006.

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