Bucs faithful should be soothed by a compelling argument that suggests the possiblity of blacked out Bucs home games in 2009 is nothing more than ill-informed media hype.

And that argument comes from Roy Cummings, Bucs beat writer for The Tampa Tribune.

Speaking on 1040 AM on Sunday, Cummings talked about how he attended the Bucs first “select-a-seat event” expecting to count more than 10,000 stadium seats available for season ticket purchasers yet only about 2,500 seats were being marketed.

“That’s down now to about 500 available season tickets spread around the stadium,” Cummings said. “And the Bucs [or another entity] will buy those tickets, if necessary. I’d be shocked if any games are blacked out.”

Now one might ask, “Why then are the Bucs spending so much marketing available tickets?” To that Joe says that in addition to the desire to sell season tickets, the marketing helps the Bucs expand its base of future ticket buyers and provides the team more awareness of demand before individual tickets go on sale soon.

On a side note, Joe is not one to believe for a second that ticket sales have been significantly hurt because fans are purchasing big screen televisions and prefer to watch replays on their couches. This theory was reported as gospel in the current edition of the Bucs bedfellows magazine with the colorful pictures.