I live on Salt Spring Island, and am an avid Lions fan. I would have season tickets if I lived on the mainland. Tonight I have been watching the To. / Wpg. game, while waiting to see the Lions play , but it is blacked out here because I live less than 56 km. from B.C. Place. Am I ever pissed off !!!! For me to go to a Lions home game, from here, it takes me the best part of two days, and at least 300.00, not including the ticket. Eight to 10 hours on two different ferries and waiting in lineups at the terminals, two or three meals, and a hotel room. This is not fair, although I've done it for some games. It's way better live, of course! There is no way I can get home after a game, until the next day. The black should be set up by how long it takes to get to B.C. Place, not by a 56 kilometer radius. The geography here is much different than say Regina, so a different blackout area, say within a 1 1/2 drive from the stadium, would be more fair. I want to watch the game tonight...but I can't....dirty.. @#%^&*() . Caio, Peter Codling
Get a Bell ExpressVu dish and use an address of a friend in (Alberta for instance), don't use a telephone line in your reciever or order any pay per views and you will be set. All the BC games in the clear. The only catch is wherever your dish is addressed to will black out the games in that area. Unless your in saskatchewan as they have sold out crowds all the time and the blackouts are lifted.
All you need is a friend in Chilliwack! Thats far enough. Up here in the Cariboo, none of the games are blacked out! 
Although, I do come down and watch 90% of the Lion games in person.
I too am not pleased with the current blackout policy, simply due to the fact that my neighbour who has shaw cable or starchoice is able to watch a game blacked out here but I who have Bell Express vu (legally) has a blackout in effect. I tried contacting Bell and they say TSN is in control of the blackout, TSN blames Bell What gives ? After discovering this just the past 2 home games I have recently sent off an email to TSN Bell and the CFL to see if I get any answers. This is not fair to many many loyal fans of the league, BC Lions or TSN.
I have included me email body for your review
I encourage others please also contact and file your complaints.
If I do not receive a reply or not pleased with the type of reply I do get I will contact the CRTC this is not fair practice.
Email as sent to TSN audience relations CFL and Bell express vu:
[i]I am a customer for Bell Express Vu, a loyal fan of the CFL particularly BC Lions amongst many other sports, and an avid watcher of TSN.
It has recently come to my knowledge that local sporting event blackouts are not in fact truly 100% blacked out.
I fully understand the concept of local blackouts and how a 56km radius assist in the sporting leagues attendance at local games and am in support of this if it is what it necessary to assist a league to keep teams in their current venues. However, when different cable and satellite providers are able to show a sporting event and only one of the providers is blacking out the broadcast this is in total defiance of local team support and sponsorship.
If the average joe was able to afford to attend every home game this would not be an issue, but in reality it is not affordable to an average or below average family to attend most sporting events, I commend most CFL teams in making games an affordable value of family entertainment but there is a difference watching a game from the 50 yard line as compared to the nose bled seats. When a person cannot attend a home game the next best seat is your favorite chair in front of your tv set.
Being avid fans of the BC Lions is recently has come to my attention that Bell Express Vu blackouts home games where as Shaw Cable and Starchoice Satellite do not. I have played the phone line tag n waiting games with Bell Express Vu and TSN only to have each of them put the blame on the other. I can not phantom how TSN would not lift a blackout on Bell when it is lifted on Shaw and StarChoice, nor can I phantom how Bell would risk losing customers over black outs, most shocking is that the CFL would allow this proxy to even occur.
I would like some concrete answers and not just the blame game as to how this can happen.[/i]
Good luck. I have to agree with you that the system is flaud.
the TSN high def feed through Shaw Cable has all the Games they can't black them out. see if you can get a Referbished DCT 6200 they are trying to get rid of these so I'm sure you can get it for a good deal .
Pedro, pretty wierd that you are blacked out on Salt Spring. I live on Pender Is., as you know, just a stones throw away from where you are. We are not blacked out here. I don't think, as the crow flies that Pender is any further away than S.S.
Sorry to hear that and I hope the blackout is not spread the three miles we are from you.
Big Dog
The entire blackout scheme is a business model clung to by a bunch of dinosaurs who rely on economics books written in the dark ages. Applying monopolistic business practices in a situation of near perfect competition for your sports entertainment dollar.
You know, the best way to guage your appeal as an entertainment industry is the amount of imitation, or in this case, piracy you inspire.
Want to watch a Leafs game? Despite the lack of blackouts you will see dozens of streaming feeds on the internet to view any given game, with fans from all over the world interacting and hyping Leaf Fandom.
But now the CFL… a League so desperate for stronger fan support, with a monumental task of growing a fanbase in a population-stable, multi-pro-sport environment.
There is rarely “pirate streaming” of the lowly CFL games… Occasionally, when it’s convenient. Often through ESPN360 streams or from that KLKT Kansas station.
But on a Saturday night, up against hockey, well good luck. Sounds like the perfect time to black-out the game. Doesn’t it? Especially since Team1040 is covering the hockey game. I know, let’s play the entire game in secret, behind closed doors, and give passes only to a special few dozen people on the condition that they swear to secrecy everything thing they see that night.
THAT’S SURE TO EARN SOME $$$ !
So they did.
TSN, TEAM1040 both bypassed the event in Vancouver, and basically 2/3rds of the interested fans regarding this mean-nothing game got told to shell out 60$ for the ticket or pretend the game wasn’t happening. In this instance you should be out on the street giving tickets away in the hope of retaining some interest in your team, in the light of a possible home playoff game coming up.
CFL treats their fans like CRAP.
Just ask anyone from Saskatchewan or Winnepeg and get your head chewed off for an hour about blackouts.
Hey, when you issue a blackout, do your charge the sponsors less for the commercials shown in the rest of the country because the commercials aren’t reaching the viewers they paid to reach? I wonder if McCain Foods or Safeway get a break on their advertising bill for blacked-out games.
BTW the canucks had at least 4 streaming channels showing the hockey game last Saturday night on the web, Lions had 1 (espn360 which isn’t available outside the USA). So by that indication, I wonder who grew more fan support Saturday night?
I am sick and tired of hearing about this, the NHL has way more money, than the cfl that is why they can do that and the cfl can't, the cfl has always been that way and that is the way it is going to be until they get at least 10 teams in the league, so quit complaning , the cfl is what it is, and so is the NHL.
still the lions drew over three hundred thousand people this year the first since 1991,( on sat getting 36,000) and do not forget that the cfl is a gate driven league, and putting blacked out games on tv is not there main concern, filling the stadiums are. ( if you want to see every lions home game on tv then by a shaw hd box, that way you will get every lions game at home on tv as they are in hd every game) until that changes that is the way it is going to be.