***Note: Since this article was written the Philippines has passed and in-acted a cybercrime law that appears to make downloading and uploading of torrents a criminal offense. I will leave the article up for now, but please note that I do not recommend you download torrents given the law which appears to make it a crime to do so.***

The National Football League is not popular among those that live in the Philippines, except with some of those American expats. As I’ve mentioned before, basketball is the sport here. At least when Manny isn’t fighting.

There aren’t any television packages locally that will let you watch the Sunday NFL games. For that you’ll need to turn to the internet. Thankfully there are a number of options there.

Which is the best for you?

NFL Game Pass

The most obvious choice for those willing to make the sacrifice of money and sleep is the offering from NFL.com of the Game Pass. This is available only to those living outside the United States and some of the territories. It allows you to watch either any of the games or just your team, depending upon the package you choose. This can be done live, or you can watch the archive after the fact. It ranges from about $110 just for your team to $200 for the full package and extras.

I’m not willing to get up at 1:00 a.m. to watch my team live, so I’ve decided not to use this service at this time. I could watch the archives, but I feel this is expensive for that, and there are other options. The price will drop as the season moves on, so I could end up taking advantage of this down the road.

NFL Rewind

This package only shows the game archives not the live games. As opposed to Game Pass, this is only available to those that live in the US. In theory you cannot watch it here in the Philippines. Of course there are ways around that, the most popular being subscribing to a VPN service. There are many out there, and I’ll let you decide what is the best, if that is the route you choose.

The cost of this service is about $35 for your team or $70 for all the Sunday games. You’ll also need to include the cost of the VPN which can be as little as $5/month, to quite a bit more, depending upon the level of service and company you choose.

Streamed Feeds

Sometimes difficult to find and often of low quality, not to mention erratic reception, this is still an option for those that wish to watch the games live without the hefty fee. No different than if you are in the US, you need the correct software and/or links to watch these. Often the games are taken down in mid-game, due to copyright infringements.

This isn’t a good solution for me, as I don’t care to get up in the middle of the night and the questionable quality/reception only adds to the issue. I’ll pass on this for the most part.

P2P Torrents

This is another option that has questionable legalities is illegal. The torrent sites come and go, but torrents seem to be here to stay. Many people all over the world use them for music, movies, television shows, etc. Most of the NFL games are available within a day or two after the conclusion. Often times you will have a choice of the quality and therefor the size of the file you wish to download.

This seems like is n longer a good choice for those that don’t need to watch the game live but at the same time are not concerned about legal issues. I’m not here to recommend you use this kind of service, but just pointing it out for those that do wish to try it.

I’m still trying to decide what will work best for me. If the NFL were to offer NFL Rewind to those outside of the US, I would think most would go that route as opposed to the torrents, due to the availability of the games sooner, and consistent quality. I’m not sure what the reasoning is by the NFL to not offer this package overseas.

Overall there are some options for the die hard NFL football fan. All is not lost. Well, except possibly your games. I can’t help with that.

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By Category: Cultural Adjustment, Internet, Technology Tags: , , , ,