Raiders given another extension to potentially avoid blackout

According to MercuryNews.com's Jerry McDonald, the Raiders have been given an extension to attempt to sell out O.co Coliseum to avoid a blackout on Sunday when they host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They received a similar extension before their last home game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, a game they won by a score of 26-23 in overtime, and were able to avoid the blackout, winning in front of 51,634 fans.

Oakland is currently at risk of breaking a sellout streak that has reached 11 games, dating back to last season and the first three games of the 2012 season.

The NFL's blackout policy is easily the league's least popular practice with fans, most of whom don't feel it's fare to be punished for not being able to afford the price of tickets, parking, food and beverages and other costs incurred when attending an NFL game. In an effort to make the policy a little more fan friendly, the league declared that a game could be televised as long as teams sold 85 percent of their tickets. Considering that the Raiders were 10,000 short of selling out before their last home game, it's likely that they took advantage of the new rule, and may need to again.

As of right now, though, anyone who is not going to the game and lives within a 75-mile radius of O.co Coliseum will have to find another game to watch.

That is unless they have the Internet, of course.