WWE to blackout ‘Elimination Chamber’ watch parties in Chicago, per report

Local blackouts are a significant point of frustration for MLB, NBA, and NHL fans across the country. But now, it seems those frustrations are expanding to professional wrestling.

That’s right. According to a recent report by the pro wrestling blog Fightful Select, WWE is moving to blackout next weekend’s Elimination Chamber event for commercial establishments in Chicago, where the event is taking place. Previously, it had been reported that WWE planned to implement a blackout rule for Wrestlemania in Las Vegas this April, but no such plans were known for Elimination Chamber.

The Wrestlemania blackout rules indicate that commercial establishments within 50 miles of the arena are barred from airing the event, even if the business has paid the requisite licensing fees to WWE. It’s unclear if the radius for Saturday’s Elimination Chamber is the same, though it would seem like it.

It’s a perplexing move for a property like WWE. Local blackouts are typically instituted to protect local broadcasters. Regional sports networks pay huge annual fees to the MLB, NBA, and NHL teams in their market for the exclusive rights to air games. Local blackouts protect the value of those rights by preventing in-market fans from accessing the broadcast through any other means, like an NBA League Pass-type service or a nationally available network.

The way in which WWE is implementing these blackouts is a bit antiquated in the grand scheme of blackout rules. Purportedly, WWE is instituting the blackouts as a means of boosting ticket sales to the event. Until 2014, the NFL had a similar policy in which games were blacked out in a local market if a team didn’t sell out a certain percentage of available tickets. That rule has been suspended on a year-by-year basis for the past 11 seasons.

Beginning last September, WWE’s premium live events (PLEs) have been exclusively available on ESPN Unlimited. The $30 per month service is cheaper than WWE used to charge for pay-per-view events, but is still unavailable to a wide swath of customers that should receive the service at no additional cost.

Just six days out from Elimination Chamber, and there are still plenty of unsold tickets in the United Center. But despite the lack of demand, WWE is still charging north of $250 just to get into the event. It seems the wrestling promotion is choosing to make it more difficult for Chicago-area fans to watch the event without attending in person, rather than simply making ticket prices more affordable.