Update: The Cardinals were able to sell out the home opener, thus lifting the blackout. I'm back to looking forward to the game on Sunday, as opposed to watching a re-run at midnight. It's funny because I just heard on the radio 30 minutes before the deadline that the Cardinals still had a good amount of tickets left to sell. Apparently, somebody paid for all the remaining tickets.
The Cardinals received an extension today, to prevent a possible blackout at University of Phoenix stadium on Sunday when they play the San Francisco 49ers. The extension will last until 1:15 PM local time tomorrow(Friday) to give the Cardinals a chance to sell out the remaining 1,700 tickets still available. It does come as a surprise as the Cardinals are coming off of the best season in their history, and a Super Bowl appearance. At ESPN, Mike Sando gathered a quote from the Phoenix Business Journal stating the current quality of the Phoenix economy:
"Phoenix has one of the weakest economies in the nation right now. The characteristics of this particular recession all combined to hit Arizona harder than almost any other state, and Phoenix has fallen further than almost any other major labor market."
Last year the Cardinals faced similar situations in their home opener against the Miami Dolphins. Some of us(including myself) rushed last minute to purchase tickets to this game in fear or missing it on TV(Ok I lied. I was probably the only one to do that). They received an extension long enough to fill up the stadium, making it possible for fans to watch it on TV. They also faced a similar problem with their first playoff game against the Atlanta Falcons. They were able to receive two extensions up until the last minute, when the game sold out as well. New changes have recently been implemented for fans to watch blacked out games now. At NFL.com, you can now watch replays of games that were blacked out, but not until after midnight. I don't know about everyone else, but I have little faith that the game may sell out. Hopefully I'm wrong.