Some couple of decades ago the TV people (actually the Football - US imitation - people) started threatening and collecting fees from all the taverns and clubs if they had a TV and might show a football game.

A court ruling, possibly limited to Kansas declared that the TV "might be just background noise" and the FB (you can read that "foot ball" or "f*g b*d) collectors were entitled to payment only if:

1. It was advertised that a specific game would be shown - i.e. "come to the bar to watch the game" and

2. No payment was required unless the TV was of "an unusual size not commonly used by home viewers.

One club owner of my acquaintance immediately bought two 57 inch TVs for his own home, and one each for the cook and the chief bartender to use at home, as "defense" against the one at the club being a "large screen" TV.

It must be noted that this was about 25 years ago (ca. 1985), when it possibly would have been cheaper to pay the extortion fees. Big TVs then took a home of their own for the rear-projection kind, or a couple of mortgage payments for the (rare) more advanced ones.

A decade later, in Washington state, it was common on "game nights" to find huge black curtains festooning the taverns, since the fee was demanded for everyone who entered, unless an "admission" was charged and those admitted "to watch the game" were sequestered where the others couldn't see the TV screens - in which case the fee was based only on those who paid to watch.

I would suspect that the cases described were not isolated to the two states named, since the extortionists agencies demanding the fees were national, if not international.

John