SaintsBro

Well you weren't around then, but you'd be surprised. Typically a lot of times only a small number of Saints games would "black out" and not be on TV, usually late in the season. There were plenty of Saints home games on TV. Sometimes on the radio only, but not that often. A lot of times as a little kid I remember being STUCK watching the miserable Saints on TV, because at times they'd be the only game on the television, AT ALL. Then at 3:00 there'd usually be this really great AFC game on the other channel, that was always like, so much more exciting compared to the Saints! The Madden Raiders and stuff.

The footage that you see all the time, of the empty seats in the Dome and the bag heads, which is what you are obviously thinking of -- that was from the 1-13 season. But attendance was not always THAT horrendous during most of those years.

It was also different back then, in that it wasn't ALL season tickets -- people could buy tickets for individual games, and often did. There'd often be this media thing on TV during the week, where the sports commentators would say, "only X number of tickets are remaining to be sold, to lift the blackout on the Saints this coming week," and then people or local companies would go scurrying out to buy them. It wasn't like seasons were sold out a whole year in advance, like they are now.