Chargers Blow Whistle on Bars Violating Blackouts : Sports: Establishments televising home games not sold out are warned that the team will take legal action. Some agree to comply.

The San Diego Chargers have mailed threatening letters to bars and restaurants throughout the county, vowing to take legal action unless the establishments stop showing the football team’s blacked-out home games.

The Chargers’ campaign follows similar efforts in Miami and Cleveland, where, earlier this season, the fight over blacked-out home games led to a boycott of the major NFL beer advertisers and a private meeting between bar owners and Cleveland Browns boss Art Modell.

Chargers’ marketing director Rich Israel said Thursday that he had mailed out the letters and will do so again if businesses choose to show blacked-out games, which are easily accessed with a satellite dish.

“Basically, the letter tells them that it’s not allowable,” Israel said. “You cannot show home games that are blacked out. This is not unusual. We send out such letters fairly frequently. How often? Whenever we have reports of violations.”

Norman Lebovitz, the owner of Sluggo’s, a La Jolla-based restaurant chain, and the president of the Assn. for Sports Fans Rights, which has members across the country, said Thursday that he had urged area restaurateurs and bar owners to accept the Chargers’ mandate.

“But I think it’s stupid,” he said. “Really stupid. I believe it’s a great loss to the Chargers, but then, they’ve done a lot of stupid things in the eight years I’ve been in San Diego.”

Lebovitz said he had been contacted by Steve Goldberg, owner of the Paradise Grill in Encinitas, who received one of the threatening letters from the Chargers and who turned to him for help.

“A lot of guys who own bars are calling me, asking, ‘What should I do?’ I’m telling them to abide by the agreement” not to show blacked-out Chargers games, Lebovitz said. “But it’s the Chargers--not these guys--who are making the big mistake.”

Goldberg said he will honor the Chargers’ request, “because they can afford a lot of high-priced attorneys, and I can’t.” He said the decision will hurt business “because plenty of other restaurants and bars are showing blacked-out Charger games.”

Greg Aiello, the spokesman for the National Football League, said Thursday from his New York office that the league supports the Chargers’ decision and that its attorneys have never lost in pursuing blackout violators.

“For commercial establishments to show blacked-out home games is a violation of copyright law,” Aiello said. “And we have successfully stopped many establishments from doing that over the years. Our primary interest is to protect the home team’s ability to sell tickets.”

Aiello said he did not believe the league would ever reverse its policy.

“Never is a long time,” Lebovitz said. “They also said they would never grant free agency to players, and they’re about to do that, because a federal judge will make them if they don’t. When will they learn they’re not God?”

Two years ago, Lebovitz led a nationwide crusade to reverse a decision by the National Football League to “scramble” satellite transmissions of its weekly games. Lebovitz’s organization had effectively invoked a boycott of two beer advertisers.

That led to a private meeting between Lebovitz and executives of CBS and NBC in New York, where he said he promised that members of his organization would refuse to show a team’s blacked-out home games in return for having access to all other games via satellite.

But he said he opposes the NFL’s--and the Chargers’--blackout decision, “because it doesn’t make any sense.”

“When (the Chargers) didn’t have a good product on the field, they apparently didn’t want people to see it, so they didn’t put it on television (when the team played at home),” he said. “Now they have an exciting team, a first-place team--and they still don’t sell out, and they still won’t put it on television! They have no idea of how to market a team.”

The Chargers’ Israel said, “I’m just the messenger. This is handled on a leaguewide basis. We’re the eyes and ears of the league here. It’s similar to trademark infringement. We have a standard response for that as well.”

Israel said that, for the blackout to be lifted, each NFL team must sell out a home game 72 hours before kickoff. Thus, the Chargers have about 59,000 tickets to sell before 1 p.m. Thursday prior to a Sunday home game and have accomplished that only once this season, before they played the Los Angeles Raiders.

Israel said that, even if the team qualifies for the upcoming playoffs, which it’s expected to do, no playoff game at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium would be shown on local television unless it satisfies the rule. The Chargers’ game with Cincinnati last Sunday was the team’s final regular-season home game of 1992.

Aiello said “the first priority of the league is to have a full stadium, which creates the kind of excitement and appeal that makes it an attractive television show.”

Goldberg argued that the Chargers have not sold out their games consistently for years--not even this season, with the team sharing first place with Kansas City in the AFC West.

“I’m sympathetic to the Chargers to a degree, but their public support has been so low for so long,” Goldberg said. “I don’t understand all this bad will from the Chargers. Maybe down the road, when the team is more popular and can afford to lose support, but now? They should welcome anyone who wants to watch them.”

Lebovitz said the blackout is bad because many fans can’t afford the Chargers’ primary ticket price of $30, while penalizing other fans who can’t “arrange every detail of every week” around a Chargers’ game.

“Why take it away from me because I can’t go out there on a given Sunday?” he said. “If you put it on television, I’ll be more of a loyal fan. You’re telling me I’m not going to support you because you’ve put it on television? That’s ridiculous.”