Catching Superbowl XLIII in Tokyo

For all those expats wanting to catch the big game - NHK BS1 will be showing it live next Monday, starting at 8:10 AM with the kickoff happening at 8:20 AM. Gaora will be showing it Monday night/Tuesday morning at 12:00 AM  and a few times again later in the week. I just thought I should drop a line here so people can find the information seeing that NHK does not seem to offer this information in English and all ;)

p.s. In case it is not obvious the image is not made by me and I am using it with the assumption that it is OK for a not-for-profit blog like this to use it. If you are the copyright owner drop me a line and I will remove it immediately.

Watching NFL games in Japan

I have been a big fan of NFL for the last two years - way too late for someone who lived in Pittsburgh for the last ten... I guess in order to make up for the time I have lost, i.e. the first eight years, I have started to follow the Steelers pretty religiously. This, of course, created a problem when moving out from Pittsburgh. Thankfully Japan is one of the few countries in the world really interested in (and thus following) the NFL...

NFL is mainly covered by a channel named Gaora in Japan. This is available through cable (JCN is what I use) and as I understand it also through satellite. They keep an updated schedule of games to be broadcasted online in English. All of the post-season games are shown as well as select games during the season. They are not tied to a specific network in the USA so games from CBS, FOX, etc. are shown. The funny thing is that the logos of the networks originally broadcasting the games are usually on the screen as well making it almost seem like someone patched a satellite signal and you are watching pirated video (which is of course not true :P). The non-live games take an hour less than the games as they were originally broadcast since there are very few ads during a program in Japan and all the breaks just get skipped. For live games they still do not have ads but instead divert to a studio where they discuss the last play or they advertise the upcoming games (so in a way, their own ad I guess). Also, games are simulcast in both the original language (i.e. English) and with Japanese commentating.

Unfortunately Gaora does not seem to be doing their broadcasts in High Definition. However, sometimes NHK1 which is available as over-the-air digital broadcast shows games (I think select Sunday games broadcast on Monday) in HD.