Places to Watch NFL Games

[Lootoo]

Thanks for that comprehensive guide. Now if only it were so easy to get my college team's games...

[methosb]

Does nfl.com or one of the sports channels stream in the US? Or some avenue to get it on Hulu. If so maybe I will get myself a vpn account to watch it online.

[PackerFan]

Thanks for that comprehensive guide. Now if only it were so easy to get my college team's games...

A FEW games are on 680/635....A few...obviously NCAA football there are SOO many games, so the odds are against your game being on.

I ended up going the free route a few times if it was a game I really wanted to see.

[PackerFan]

Does nfl.com or one of the sports channels stream in the US? Or some avenue to get it on Hulu. If so maybe I will get myself a vpn account to watch it online.

From what I've seen nfl.com is really strict about where they stream.

If you have a DirecTV subscription for NFL ticket back in the USA or a FRIEND has one, (it costs around $250 USD per season) You CAN stream and watch ONLINE.

A few years ago I remember my wife scheduled a bday party for the kids and a few dads were pissed it was on a sunday. So I brought my laptop and streamed the game, but I had to use my directv credentials (I used to buy the NFL ticket every year).

Regardless, I doubt NFL games are going to show up on Hulu, NFL is extremely paranoid about that stuff. And direcTV pays billions to the NFL to be the sole provider of all the sunday games, so they aren't going to make it available to anyone for free either.

If you have a buddy who loves you and he has DirecTV with the NFL ticket, you can try that. Or if he at least has DirecTV, maybe split the cost of NFL ticket with him.

[Grumbler]

i am probably going with NFL.com. you can select your team and watch all of the games. the internet speed here seems to be very fast and the quality is awesome. i think NBA league pass would work in HK as well for basketball fans. now, i just have to find a way to watch the badgers football and basketball. i would love to watch the packers/badgers at the bar for rose bowl or super bowl in the future. for regular seasons, probably will just stay at home since it'll be easier.

[PackerFan]

After 2 seasons of watching the NFL in Hong Kong, I've gone through all the different options. So here it is.

Here are your options:

#1) HK Cable Now TV.
I think the regular package will come with sports channel 635 which will play 2 games live on (Monday morning 1AM/4AM until we switch to 13hours ahead). They will air the more popular teams, but it’s never certain what they will air until a day or two ahead u can check online. Also sometimes they will show repeats from previous week, so some weekends Channel 635 you are Out of Luck. They also normally show Sunday night and Monday football live (which is Monday morning/Tuesday morning), and they replay it at our night as well.
Second channel on NowTV, 680 (ASN). It is a premium channel, separate charge. They will also have on a couple games live. They "officially" carry NFL games. Last year I saw probably 8-10 packer games on these 2 channels (but realize they were the defending champs, so the likelihood of being on goes up, as the popular teams get the more primetime nationwide slots, which are more likely to be shown in HK).

#2) Slingbox
I had a backup plan of a slingbox, at my brother’s house, but my results were varied. Lots of freezing and pixilation and sometimes I’d watch the game recorded (so I could sleep in and not show up to work bug eyed and incoherent) and I'd watch it Monday night in HK, which was Monday morning back in US and I battled my 3 year old Nephew (that TV was the only available one for a Sling). I’d be watching the game and he’d switch it to Curious George. So we’d go back and forth for a while until I’d call my brother and he’d call home and take care of it. But needless to say, with all the delay and rewinding and losing touch with the sling, everytime an interruption occurred it wasted 10 minutes. After futzing with it for 1.5 years the thing finally died. I have friends who've had much better experience with their slingboxes. No delay, no pixelation issues, and no losing touch with the damn thing when Curious George turns on.

#3) NFL.com.
For NON North American countries/territories etc. We have the option to watch your favorite team, streaming live for around $100 USD per season (regular season only). To watch all teams it is more. The picture quality is FANTASTIC. It’s HD quality and no pixels nor freezing. For the few games not on 635 or 680, this was a great alternative.

#4) Go the cheap route and watch free.
Just google around and find various sites showing games for free. Dept of Homeland security usually shuts a bunch of them down, then others prop up elsewhere. Quality is mixed, from awful, to just good enough to see some people running around. And it freezes and dies…and sometimes it’s just a guy streaming what’s on his TV and he could change the channel. Half the people claiming to be streaming the game, their streams don’t work….sometimes it does…for a while..…it’s very hit or miss. I'd usually have several streams ready, and if one went down, I'd pop open the other...if one froze for too long, I'd switch over...You get what you pay for...sometimes it's great...many times it's shit.

And don’t worry about playoffs. Channel s 635/680 will show most of them, and they are also at various bars. Some bars that aren’t open, will actually open if you call and tell them you have a party of 8 or more, they will open up for you or have a min charge to open up the place. You can call and ask.

(I watched the Badgers in the Rose Bowl this year with 30+ Badger Alumni in HK at a bar one Monday at 5-6AM. It was fantastic, except for the end).

Personally I do both #1 and #3 so I have all 16 games.

If you don't care about screen size you can do #3 and be done with it. But I enjoy TV in the family room concept so I'm willing to pay for the cable channel and watch the majority of the games on a proper TV. When I'm desperate that's when I jump over to NFL.com and settle for watching online.

So there you have it. Your watching NFL games in Hong Kong guide.

I just want to update this slightly.

ASN channel on NOWTv 680 will always show SUNDAY night games, MONDAY night games, and THURSDAY NIGHT prime time games live (so our Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Friday morning).

They will also do a REPEAT showing in our evening. There's been a few times I've actually avoided the scores of the Sunday night game and then watched it at a bar Monday evening in HK.

They also usually have 1 or 2 games live during the 1pm Sunday time slot and the 4pm Sunday time slot.

Channel 680 is not in the normal cable package, you do pay extra for it.

I gave up on the slingbox and now I watch all the primetime games on 680, it's in HD. When my team is not on primetime, I check the cable listing a day or two before gameday and see if my game is coming on either 635 or 680, if not I hook up my laptop to the TV and stream the game on NFL.COM.



If you want to see the game in a bar:

McSorley's in Soho is a decent sports bar on Elgin street. They always play the Sunday night game (our Monday morning) on repeat Monday night. It's usually pretty fun because there's a good crowd of American football fans there, and all enjoying the game. Some have seen the game, some have no clue about what's going to happen. But it is nice to hang out with a bunch of American Football fans and talk NFL. Sometimes it gets packed on Monday nights. (FYI if you are a member of HKFAL the american flag football or geared league you get 15% off at McSorleys). Besides the discount it is a decent place to watch a football game.

Sometimes they show 2 games a night, as the repeat games the commercials are stripped out, so the each game is only 1.5 or 2 hours.


If you want to see a game in a bar live.....Call around. Some of the bars are either OPEN or MANY are WILLING to open if you can commit to party of 6 or 8 or 10 or a min. amount to make it worth their while. There's a few bars in Wan Chai like Delaney's often open at odd hours for sporting events. It's always worth it to call.

[Bob Loblaw]

Does nfl.com or one of the sports channels stream in the US? Or some avenue to get it on Hulu. If so maybe I will get myself a vpn account to watch it online.

nfl.com - https://gamepass.nfl.com/nflgp/secure/packages

this is what i'm planning on doing. my guess is that this works *only* outside of the US.
i know that a friend in Paris who used to have to go to sports bars and try to catch whatever skysports chose to show, now watches at home via internet. i'm thinking it's this, though i'm going to verify before spending the money.
that $270, i'm figuring it's USD, not HKD.
I'm 99% sure that you can't do that in the US.
In past years, there's been some deal where if you buy that year's Madden, you get the Directv all-the-games (or all the Sunday games?) with it, for less than if you got the directv deal sans Madden. Not sure if that's true this year or not.

[PackerFan]

nfl.com - https://gamepass.nfl.com/nflgp/secure/packages

this is what i'm planning on doing. my guess is that this works *only* outside of the US.
i know that a friend in Paris who used to have to go to sports bars and try to catch whatever skysports chose to show, now watches at home via internet. i'm thinking it's this, though i'm going to verify before spending the money.
that $270, i'm figuring it's USD, not HKD.
I'm 99% sure that you can't do that in the US.
In past years, there's been some deal where if you buy that year's Madden, you get the Directv all-the-games (or all the Sunday games?) with it, for less than if you got the directv deal sans Madden. Not sure if that's true this year or not.

Ya it only works outside the U.S., unless you get all tricky and use a connection that shows you being outside the U.S.


For our purposes, gamepass works well. I buy the (1 team only) pass for my team, and it's $169.99.

I have a coupon code: REP15 to get 15% off, it worked about a month ago, so I think it's still working.


The $270 is the works package. All games, playoffs, redzone channel, etc. For the Superbowl, every sports bar in Hong Kong will be playing it (it's pretty fun to watch it in a HK bar with 100+ people cheering about American football. That's a must do, except then heading off to work...), and some of the playoffs are in the bars as well (and it's on 680).. So i don't bother for anything but regular season. And I don't watch other teams live so the $144.49 (Net coupon) works for me.

[bdw]

Maige TV has NFL HD (channel 427) from the US.

[PackerFan]

Maige TV has NFL HD (channel 427) from the US.

I hadn't heard of it before. Sounds interesting. I couldn't find NFL channel on the listing but maybe it's not updated.

http://www.maigetv.tv/maigechlist.jpg