Oh, Happy Day!
Since I moved to Europe back in 2000, I've had one singular goal. It's a goal I've pursued relentlessly, making use of all the tools at my disposal. It's been an extremely long haul, with advances and setbacks along the way, mountains to climb, and oceans to traverse.
And today, at long last, I have achieved that goal.
For, effective today, I will FINALLY be able to watch every single New York Giants game, live, over the internet. And I cannot begin to express my utter joy at this development.
Let me give you some back-story here.
Unlike back in the USA (and Canada), where the NFL Sunday Ticket package has allowed viewers to watch the game of their choice for over 10 years, live coverage of the NFL is highly limited in Europe.
To give you an idea of the limitations, consider this:
- There are up to 16 NFL games each week.
- In the UK, you can generally get 2 games on Sunday, and then the Monday night game.
- In France (where I currently live), there is currently no — as in zero — NFL broadcast coverage at all.
- NFL broadcast rights in continental Europe have been bought by NASN, a network that is not available at all in most countries.
Over the years, I've attempted to stack the odds in my favour.
Despite the fact that I live in France, I am currently a subscriber to both Sky (from the UK) and Tividi (from Germany) satellite services, which subscriptions I should not legally hold.
I've looked into the possibility of using both the Slingbox and TV2Me, which services rebroadcast over the internet. However, neither of these services works with the Mac, and they both would require me to install expensive hardware in a friend's house somewhere in the New York television market.
When I still worked at Yahoo, I tried to convince the broadcast.com team to stream the games to me on the down-low, to no avail.
I've even gone so far as to have my dad connect a video output from the cable to iChat, and watch the games in all their jagged digital glory.
But, in the end, I had to be content with watching 2-3 games a year, and listening to the rest via the internet audio stream. And let me tell you, it's far more frustrating listening to the Giants fall apart than it is watching the Giants fall apart. Audio simply doesn't capture the true essence of an Eli Manning interception or a dropped pass by Jeremy Shockey.
This week, however, the world changed, and for the better. Due, I'm supposing, to the new NFL television contract, the NFL finally signed a deal with Yahoo to make NFL Sunday Ticket available over the internet to people watching from outside North America. I can choose from any game, switch among the games, do whatever.
I have the power.
So tonight, at 2am Paris time, I will sit down in front of my computer and, at long last, watch the New York Giants play football.
Now I can watch in peace.