Here is the latest Stripes article on this.

Military members who live off base must buy AFN satellite service if they want to watch NFL action this year, officials announced during an Area II radio town hall meeting Monday.

National Football League games will not be broadcast on American Forces Network’s Prime Pacific-Korea because about 50 South Korean cable companies intercept the signal and offer it as part of their paid service, according to Lt. Col. Michael T. Lawhorn, commander of American Forces Network-Korea.

Lawhorn, in a phone interview later Tuesday, explained that the problem boils down to broadcast rights and referred to a statement from American Forces Radio and Television Service headquarters in Riverside, Calif.

“Scheduling sports on AFN Prime Pacific continues to be problematic because many events are restricted from over-the-air broadcast in Korea by the distributors,” according to the statement. “In addition, there are currently more than 50 local Korean cable companies that are illegally pirating our programming from the over-the-air broadcasts of AFN Prime. Adding more sports to that channel jeopardizes our already delicate broadcast rights negotiations.”
Lawhorn explained that AFRTS sends the Prime Pacific signal to South Korea, where his staff inserts local command information — such as Korea-specific commercials and news programming — before rebroadcasting it as Prime Pacific-Korea. That signal is broadcast openly over the air, so servicemembers can monitor the channel for emergency information without having to use a satellite dish.

And since the NFL is trying to market its product in South Korea, it doesn’t want the local cable companies to be able to offer the games for free via the pirated AFN signal, Lawhorn explained during the radio show.

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I know us in the expat teaching community really apperciates Col Lawhorns openess in telling us whats going on. I never knew the cable companies here pirate the signal, I always thought it was negoitated in the SOFA or something like that so the Korean companies could carry the signal. Given all the AFN classes that offered by the hogwons there ought to be a way cable companies pay you folks for the signal, they are making enough money off of it

Regarding the NFL 2 things are going on IMHO. For years the Koreans and the NFL could care less about things here, Then Hines Ward wins the Super Bowl MVP and Korea goes nuts. The NFL sees a potential market. Notice all the Steeler games being shown? As soon as something happens to him the interest will go away

Second the NFL has that deal with yahoo for games online for folks overseas. Problem is here in Asia the price they want is nuts. $250 for the season???? Thats the same as Sunday Ticket in the US. Big difference is 60-70% of the games are on in the middle of the night here. I wasn't going to pay that price for the 4P east coast time kickoffs

At least I have some other online choices that if the they stay up covers my NFL need (some are of dubious legality). I just wish I could watch the games on my tv instead of my computer without running a 30ft cable across my apt.

I still wish we could get the ABC Sat nite game instead of religous and other stuff on Sun AMs. Ohio St is playing Iowa this week, huge game for us buckeye fans

Thanks very much...at least people here believe I'm the commander. I saw part of this thread --including my answers -- posted at another forum (where? I've forgotten...) but someone said that my answers couldn't have actually come from the commander...it sounded like "some punk airman" instead

I'm glad you guys are getting the word though. I've always believed that people care about getting AN answer at least as much as they care about getting the answer that favors them.

LTC Lawhorn

First it was good to meet you at the Dragon on Friday sir, and hopefully the rest of your day was productive. As for the subject at hand, I had considered getting the AFN decoder but when I finally made it to the PX to make the purchase I was told that they were out and they would put my name on a waiting list.

Being the somewhat impatient person I am when it comes to my personal entertainment, I purchased a Slingbox instead and had it up and running (at my house in Colorado) in about 3 days. I have to say that now I am very, very glad I did not spend the money on the AFRTS stuff!

My suggestion to AFRTS would be to up the ante a bit with that satellite service and offer something beyond the 7 decent channels (no one counts the Pentagon Channel!) and perhaps consider a package similar to what is shown in Dragon Hill where you can get things like Fox News, The Golf Channel and ESPN. If something comparable to that was offered not only would it justify the current (and probably slightly higher) cost, but it would actually be something worth waiting for!

I am sure the skillful negotiators at AFRTS in the states could broker a deal, but I am wondering what attempts may have already been made with the wrong business model in mind... I know lots of this is out of your control, but I just wanted to share my personal experience and offer my 1.5 cents on what would make it better.

I think it would be a nightmare trying to negotiate all the various channels, since most of them are already offered by Korean providers.

I remember the good ol' days (or were they?) when deciding what to watch on tv here in Korea was really easy - because you only had one channel. Hopefully, you had a decent antenna and was located in a place where you could pick up the signal without too many squiggly lines in the picture.

Based on the number of channels I get - which I think is now ten channels (not including the Pentagon channel) - $25 does seem kind of pricey. But I love watching sports, and since there are now so many games broadcast, I actually get to see my hometown team quite often. Pretty much the only way I could watch broadcasts of my hometown team in the States was to pay for expensive sports packages.

I went without a satellite dish for around a year. I finally got one and haven't regretted it for a minute ever since.

Since AFRTS has the attention of pretty much everyone, I doubt it would be all that hard to develop the idea into something useful. The only question is the logistics of handling the signal, but lots of people get paid lots of money to figure those things out.

I am watching the Fox pre-game show as we speak.... oh look a Pizza Hut commercial... :-)

Blues Brother, the nice thing about Yahoo Sports is that you can watch the games later instead of getting up early on Monday mornings to watch them. After I finish work on Mondays I come home and log on to Yahoo Sports and watch whatever games I want to see. The hard part is avoiding people telling you the scores of the games during the work day. The $250 price is pretty steep but like I said if you are really a true die hard fan of the NFL this is a way to watch the games and so far for me it has been worth it.