The Seahawks regularly sold out games at the Kingdome from its inception and throughout the 1980s; 117 consecutive regular-season home games were sold out between 1979 and 1993. However, after Ken Behring took over ownership of the team from the Nordstrom family in 1988, the team began to decline in performance; after winning the AFC West that year, it suffered a franchise-worst 2–14 record in 1992. Season ticket sales, which had reached 62,000 that year with a waiting list of 30,000, gradually decreased to 46,000 in 1995, with the team averaging 46,218 in attendance over five games at the Kingdome in 1994; as a result, the Seahawks began failing to sell out games, resulting in their blackout in the Seattle market. After the blackout of the October 24, 1993 game versus the New England Patriots, one more game was blacked out that year, with five games blacked out the following year; KING-TV, the main Seahawks television broadcaster at the time via the NFL on NBC, prevented further blackouts by purchasing all remaining unsold tickets for three games in 1993 and two games in 1994.
