Rams-Cowboys Blackout Lifted; Raiders Doubtful

The Rams’ playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys Saturday at Anaheim Stadium will be televised locally, but the Raiders’ playoff game against the New England Patriots Sunday at the Coliseum probably will not.

The Raiders were about 24,000 tickets short of a sellout at 1 p.m. Thursday. A sellout is 92,516.

Ram owner Georgia Frontiere Thursday guaranteed that Saturday’s 1 p.m. game would be televised on Channel 2 by agreeing to purchase enough tickets to make the game a sellout.

Pete Donovan, the Rams’ publicity director, said the number of tickets purchased by Frontiere was between 2,000 and 3,000, and that those tickets would be given to charity.

A sellout, for the purpose of lifting a TV blackout, is 67,820, even though Anaheim Stadium seats 69,007 for football. Some of the seats are obstructed or in poor locations for football.

A decision on the TV status of Sunday’s Raider game will be made sometime after today’s 1 p.m. deadline for lifting the blackout.

Both the Rams and Raiders agreed to 24-hour extensions of the normal deadline 72 hours before kickoff because of the New Year’s holiday.

But the 24-hour extension probably won’t mean much as far as the Raider game is concerned. The Raiders don’t figure to sell 24,000 tickets in 24 hours, or even come close.

But what if the Raiders come within 2,000 or so of a sellout today?

“The first thing we do is check the computers for mistakes,” said Al LoCasale, Raider executive assistant. “But, yeah, if somehow that happens, we’d sit down and take a look at it.”

The Raiders, who moved to Los Angeles before the 1982 season, have played four playoff games at the Coliseum. Two were blacked out.

In 1982, the strike season, an exception was made for a first-round game against Cleveland. Attendance for that game was 56,555. Then the next week, when the Raiders played host to the New York Jets, the game was blacked out. Because of a late sale of more than 20,000, attendance was 90,038.

In 1983, a playoff game against Pittsburgh was blacked out when the attendance was 90,380. The next game, the AFC championship game against Seattle, was sold out in time to have the blackout lifted.