The home stadiums of the Washington Redskins and Baltimore Ravens are less than 40 miles apart. Redskins territory ends — and the Ravens begins — at the Montgomery and Prince George’s county lines. But as both teams will tell you, they have passionate fan bases that blanket the entire mid-Atlantic region. In the eyes of the NFL, they are two different television markets, though. Washington is the nation’s ninth-largest and Baltimore ranks 26th.
According to the NFL’s broadcast laws enacted back in the 1960s, a Sunday afternoon home game for the Redskins or Ravens can be the only game aired in the home market at that same time slot. That means this year there could be as many as six conflicted Sundays when Redskins games won’t be seen in the Baltimore market and Ravens games won’t be seen in Washington.
Each city is the other’s secondary market, and they generally show their away games and have the option to show their home games when there is not a conflict. However, Fox 45 in Baltimore and WUSA, the CBS affiliate in Washington, have the right to show another game of national interest in place of either a Redskins or Ravens game.
“Every year I do my best to get as many Redskins broadcasts on as I can,” Fox 45 general manager Bill Fanshawe said. “We are here to serve the NFL fans of the mid-Atlantic and that means Ravens and Redskins football. So our goal is simple: give the fans what they want.”
The ideal situation would be if the NFL would treat the Washington-Baltimore area as a shared market the same way that the Nationals and Orioles are treated by Major League Baseball. There are only two shared media markets in the NFL — the New York Giants-New York Jets and the San Francisco 49ers-Oakland Raiders. If the area were ruled a shared market, the NFL would adjust the Redskins and Ravens schedules so games are never on the same network on the same day.
While the cities may one day be considered a shared market, it is important to understand the networks are playing by the current rules. There is no conspiracy keeping Redskins or Ravens games off televisions in either city.
Examiner columnist Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this!
