For fans of football teams with poor stadium attendance, Sunday afternoons can be a dreary experience of having to watch Cheers re-runs while occasionally checking the score of the game you’d be watching if it weren’t blacked out. But if a quintet of senators get their way, these black outs would come to an end.

Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown have jointly penned a letter to the FCC to please, please please git rid of silly blackout rules for sporting events.

“It is time for the NFL’s blackout policy to end,” reads the letter. “These blackouts are ruining the experience of rooting for the home team and are unjustly hurting fans… That many of these stadiums were constructed or remodeled using taxpayer dollars underscores the disservice done to fans by blackouts.”

The NFL has defended the blackout rule, claiming that only 16 of the 256 games played last year were blacked out.

NFL Should Drop TV Blackout Policy, Five U.S. Senators Tell FCC [Bloomberg]

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