The Ultimate NFL Game Pass Review And Why Every Aussie Fan Needs It!

By Andy A Thomas 291 days ago 5,559 views 87 Comments

NFLGamePass

For years Australians have had very limited options when it came to watching NFL games…you either got up at 5am every Monday morning to watch teams you didn’t like on Australian TV or you may have (without our permission of course) spent the morning going from one unreliable illegal streaming site to another in hopes to see at least a glimpse of your favourite team playing live.

As reported in a previous article One HD may be showing very limited to zero games this season on Free To Air TV and although ESPN Australia did a great job delivering NFL to Australian fans last season (which may get better with the introduction of ESPN2 this season)…you most likely only got to see your team a few times unless you followed a popular team that had several Sunday and Monday Night games.

Well after putting off buying it last season for several reasons, I recently decided to finally get my NFL Game Pass subscription for the upcoming 2011 season and as you will see below my fellow Aussie NFL fans….NFL Game Pass is the solution to all your problems!

Here is my step by step guide and review of signing up and using NFL Game Pass.

Pricing & Signup

The new pricing is what suprised me at first and led me to take the plunge.

It is only $121.96 AUD for full regular season & pre-season coverage and if you don’t want to cough up the $121.96 upfront, you can also make 4 installment payments of $30.49 p/month. Thats a small price to pay for a heck of a lot of Football!

Once you click the Subscribe button and enter your details, you will be taken to the Schedule screen.

Upcoming Games & NFL Network Schedule Screen

The schedule screen automatically shows you the upcoming games and schedule information but unfortunately the times aren’t in Australian times that I could see. If this remains the case we will organise something to let everyone know what time each game is on in Australian time.

If you scroll down you will also see the NFL Network schedule of upcoming NFL shows and documentaries…which is pretty much the icing on a cake of awesomeness!

To instantly watch live NFL Network at any time, there is a nice and handy big blue ‘Launch’ button on all Game Pass screens which automatically opens NFL Network and starts streaming all sorts of NFL goodness.

The Game Pass Console

Once you click the ‘Launch’ button you will enter the NFL Game Pass Console.

Unfortunately for me I was greeted with the image of Rex Ryans face in HD with my first viewing, but hopefully that doesn’t happen to you.

As you will see there are some quick links at the top to share and manage your account and then there is a Options bar at the bottom.

By default the Quality setting will be set to ‘Best Available’ but I advise to uncheck it and play around with the settings to get the best quality you can without any lag. By doing this I changed my quality from pretty blurry and average to nice and crisp HD with only a bit of lag every now and then when someone else was hogging my net connection.

The ‘Guide’ button & Two Seasons Worth of NFL Goodness

Down the bottom right hand corner of the console is the ‘View Modes’ section and a ‘Guide’ button.

The ‘View Modes’ section allows you to watch multiple shows or games at the same time which will be damn cool come around 8/9am every Monday morning this season.

The ’Guide’ button provides access to all available viewing options at anytime without interrupting whatever you are currently watching.

I was absolutely stoked when I clicked on it and found every single game from the previous two entire NFL seasons ready to watch straight away in crisp HD!

Naturally I started looking for a good Dallas Cowboys game to watch and decided to choose the first game of the 2010 season against Dom’s Washington Redskins.

As you can see (click the pic for a larger better quality image) the picture quality is amazing and this was the point where I quickly realised how big of an idiot I had been not buying Game Pass earlier!

There is also the option to chat during each live game and check the games drives:

…and the games stats:

As you will see in the images below it gets even better when you start playing around with the ‘View Modes’ features:

Game Pass Requirements

Now that you have a pretty good grasp on what you are missing out on…its time to see what you need to get started using Game Pass.

A broadband internet connection (DSL/cable or higher) of 750 kbps or higher. If you have an internet connection speed of 2.0 Mbps or higher and your computer meets the requirements below, you will be able to enjoy NFL Game Pass at its highest video quality.

Windows computers Requirements:
- Intel Pentium 4 2.33GHz or higher or equivalent AMD processor with a minimum of 512MB of memory and 64MB of video RAM.
- One of the following operating systems: Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows Media Center Edition.
- Microsoft Internet Explorer, or Mozilla Firefox:
- - IE: http://www.microsoft.com/ie
- - Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox
- Macromedia Flash Player 10.1: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/
- Video adapter and monitor: Super VGA (1024×768) or higher

Mac Requirements:
- PowerPC G5 1.6GHz
- Intel Core Duo 1.5GHz with a minimum of 512MB of memory and 64MB of video RAM
- Mac OS X 10.4+
- Mozilla Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/firefox
- Macromedia Flash Player 10.1: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/
- Video adapter and monitor: Super VGA (1024×768) or higher.

NFL Game Pass FAQ & Readers Questions Answered

Does Game Pass work on my iPhone/iPad?
At the moment I don’t believe it does (although it says coming soon on the Game Pass Support page).

Does NFL Game Pass include Playoff, Super Bowl, or Pro Bowl games?
The NFL Game Pass Season subscription only includes preseason and regular season games and does not include playoff games, the Super Bowl, or the Pro Bowl. However, you may add a Playoff Subscription to your account at any point (you can do this from the NFL Game Pass Schedule page). Additionally, later in the season the NFL Game Pass Late Season + Playoffs Subscription and the specific NFL Game Pass Playoffs subscription are available for you to sign up to gain access to all postseason NFL games (for an additional fee).

Why are some games blacked out?
Due to broadcast restrictions, games that are televised locally are subject to blackouts within NFL Game Pass. These games will, however, be made available in the NFL Game Pass archives following the conclusion of that game’s original live broadcast.

NFL Game Pass Wrap Up

Well there you have it…my definitive NFL Game Pass Guide and Introduction.

If you have any questions or comments about Game Pass please leave a comment below or tweet me at @NFLDownUnder and I will do my best to answer them.

Thats it…Im off to watch me some 24/7 NFL action and if that sounds like a good plan, make sure you click here to get your Game Pass before its too late (or the price goes up).

Shortlink:
(click to copy)

Fhjxfg
Do you have any issues with fast forward in replays? That is my one hate of the MLB subscription

http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Not at the moment Fhjxfg (cool name by the way)Will let you know if I do in the futureAndy
A D
You need to use Nextdef to use the DVR options in MLB.TV. Only drawback is that it’s delayed by 30 seconds or so.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
I have watched quite a few games and I have never had a problem with it.

Philby
is it streaming only? can you save games to watch later? how much bandwidth is a HD quality game going to use?

A D
All games are archived after they’ve been shown in full. Not immediately, though, as they have to remove the ads.
The top quality is 3000Kbps, so I’d give a rough estimate between 2GB to 3GB.
So, if you happen to wake up at 3am (or 4am in DST states, and 1am in WST), like I do and watch the following game 3 and a bit hours later, you’ve gone through 4 to 6GB for the day. Assuming, of course, you have ESPN to watch SNF, otherwise it’s 6 or 9GB. . Then factor in another 2 or 3GB for the MNF game (if you choose to watch it through Game Pass), and in the one week you’ve gone through 8 to 12GB for that week of NFL. So, on average per month, it’s 32 to 48GB a month.

Philby
cheers, but can you download them later or something? so i can watch on the flight for work? or do you have to be logged in online and watch in that session?

A D
Yeah, sorry, forgot to answer the streaming question.
Unfortunately, it’s streaming only.
http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
There is an iTunes option also which allows you to download games, highlights and recaps, and NFL Networks shows to your computer but when I clicked on it the page didn’t have any info on it…has anyone checked this out before?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
2600 MB for 2 hrs viewing so after archiving it will be nearly 3GB on the dot. AD is correct here.
Matt
Some of the FOX games have all the US ads left in them so they can be quite a bit bigger (and REALLY painful to watch, the skip forward button doesn’t work very well)

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
I would also like to point out that there are numerous quality options available, and I think that the second lowest quality is fine for me to watch, and won’t destroy your bandwidth.

Marissa
Any idea how much bandwidth the second lowest quality does use per game?

Nathan Patro (from school)
About 700 MB.

Marissa
Awesome, thanks.

Dan
Great article, I am seriously considering doing it this year. Just need to get a hook up going between my laptop & TV.

corysaint
NetGear Push2TV apparently can wirelessly hook your pc to tv, going to check one out tomorrow

A D
$121 is a bargain, btw. It was priced at $275US last season, before the AUD had hit parity.
borough
NFL network is also available as a separate package at $5 a month or $50 for the year. They currently have a 1 week free trial of NFL network available.
Mark Seaton
That good huh? Hooking up to the TV is something I would need to work out.

A D
Should be easy enough with an ethernet cable from your computer to the back of your TV. Not 100% sure on that, though.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
You can’t do that I am afraid. You will have to move your PC behind your TV and hook it up by VGA or by DSub. You can stream videos that are on the PC by Ethernet though. (just not streamed videos)

A D
Fair enough. I was hesitant to comment, because I’ve never tried it, but it just seemed like the easiest way to do it.
I’m more than happy with my computer screen.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
I am currently writing a piece on how to connect to a TV, so hopefully that will answer a few questions.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=586512478 Campbell Duffy
How long does it take for the games to be available for playback? Because I will be at school on Monday while a considerable amount of eagles games are on when they play the Sunday 4.15 time slot (USA time). So Im thinking of avoiding all my NFL friends at school so i don’t find out the score and then come home and watching the game, but I’m not going to do that if it takes more than a couple hours for it to be available for me to watch it. Any idea of the time frame?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
Hey Campbell,
Most games will be available for playback as soon as they finish, not including blacked out games.

Alistair
Looks like a decent package, but it hardly represents value when compared to its fellow American sports.
For the same price, I can get over TWO THOUSAND live or on-demand MLB games each year (playoffs are included in the fee), or one and a half thousand NBA games.
I acknowledge that Australian fans have been starved of flexible and on-demand NFL coverage, but I don’t understand why everyone is waxing lyrical about Game Pass.
Additionally, NFL kick-offs are broken down into three timeslots: Sunday early, Sunday late and MNF. This allows you to watch a maximum of just three live games per WEEK (not including split-screen). Compared to other sports with more games and more flexible timeslots, you can watch three games in a single day with tip offs or first pitches scheduled any time from 2am right through until midday.
This is obviously something that’s just unique to football, but is another factor of why I don’t believe it represents great value to Australian consumers. Good luck to you if you decide to buy! The coverage itself looks first-rate, but I don’t think I’ll justify it when games kick off at 4am or when I’m at work.

A D
The comparison isn’t very fair. You’re comparing a 162 game (the longest sports schedule in the US, at least) schedule and an 82 game schedule, and putting their respective viewing possibilities (which are both next to IMPOSSIBLE to achieve) up against a 16 game schedule.
I agree with you that the pricing comparison isn’t the most fair if the schedules are the things being the main comparison, but the NFL is the NFL. They’re the big dogs in the fight who will always come out on top. And considering they charged us Aussies (since I don’t know other countries rates) $275USD last year, before the AUD hit parity, $121 is a serious, serious bargain. Hell adding the playoff package (which I took advantage of) for $47 is a great bargain, too.
In regards to the viewing. Viewing 4 games a week is the minimum possibility, if you watch 1 game at each timeslot. This is assuming you’re employed, which not everyone is. But even then, you can easily get in 4 games on Saturday and 4 games on Sunday if you have a proper plan. Personally, I’m happy with the 4, since the vast majority of overrated teams and games get bullshit coverage on ESPN (since that’s all we get on PayTV, too), anyway.
With regards to value, it’s all related to the individual buying the package. Also, considering how quick the NFL are to stomp out streams, then it makes the value added for avid NFL fans.
Personally, I love sleeping for 3 or 4 hours, and waking up, pumped up to watch the NFL game(s) that morning. I know not everyone’s like that, but I love this sport with all my heart, so for me it’s best feeling each week.
I’m not trying to talk your or anyone into the package, Alistair. I’m just trying to give an ulterior viewpoint, as to why I believe it is a worthwhile investment.
If you’re passionate enough about your team to wake up at 3 or 4am to find an illegal stream, then you’re passionate enough to spend $121 to not find an illegal stream.
http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Alistair if you are a die-hard fan who really wants to watch as many games as possible I think it is a bargain and a total no brainer.
I run my own business so am very flexible with my time which I understand not everyone else is. With Game Pass you can still watch every archived game when you get home from work every night…which isnt possible on Australian TV.
Foxtel with the sports package is like $50/60 per month and thats not even half the games a week probably so it definitely works out cheaper in the long run in my opinion.

Nicholasphutchins
Not to mention the nfl is the most expensive in the us for this type of coverage. Nfl network and redzone are 10 a month if you already have a pay tv subscription. You can’t get all live games with out direct tv which is satallite. And then you pay 350 for nfl ticket which is live but not on demand (to my knowledge). Basically this is the best thing ever and one of the few benefits in sports and tv in general for living in aus rather than the us, where I’m from.

Jamesm_87
Baseball sucks though….

Ben_arner
cost me like 25 dollars for a week last year now its 30 a month
Lips
this is great! huge Charger fan, we don’t get much airtime over here (even with foxtel), apart from the odd Sunday & Monday night games…. i was contemplating buying this last year, but took to early morning internet radio instead, which is still great…. but at $121AUD this is too good… i don’t have the fastest internet in the world, being on the fringe of suburbia and country but it’s at least still broadband…. gonna buy this right away…. great review too!!
Jamesm_87
Just signed up the other day, very excited for the upcoming season. Deliberately took Mondays off Uni so I can watch as many games as I can on Monday. Go Eagles!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mia-Juts/100002791716571 Mia Juts
Great choice, maybe You’ve try TweTV also ?

Andrew
Hey guys, I had this three years ago when is was very expensive. and im stoked at the price drop.
however if completley chewed through my download quotas so i never renewed.
has the quality and etc changed over the past 2 years? I really dont want to buy this, and then 2 weeks into my monthly usage have my internet speeds cut..
If anyone knows how much it chews per hour on each setting… it would be greatly appreicated.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
Hi Andrew,
At the lowest quality (400kbps), the game will chew anywhere upwards of around 350MB for a 2 hr game. Upwards of that, you will be looking at quite a large amount.Get back to me with your download quota and we can work from there.

Andrew
well im in a house with 50gb all up, so it should be fine.
i just dont really want to waste it all as such.
might not have a choice with onehd not telecasting..

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
One HD are telecasting, check out their FB page. No details revealed as of yet.

Tal
Is there any further info on blackout games? i.e. Are Mr. Packer & Mr. Murdoch’s pay TV (and any One HD games) all going to blacked out and deny us access to live games on GamePass? Is this why the price has dropped? Any info appreciated.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
The blackout rules are complicated, to say the least. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(broadcasting)#NFL_blackout_policy
The TV networks we have here will have timeslotted for the game beforehand so will probably fill the timeslot with a different game. On the Gamepass however, I am not sure exactly what blackout rules apply there. I will assume that we will definitely get it if it is a national broadcast. (touch wood)

Rickpekan
Hey guys, blackouts like the one’s on wikipedia only apply to “local teams”. So if a game doesn’t sell out in Detroit, it is blacked out on tv stations within 75 miles of Ford Field…. I’m no geographic major, but australia isn’t 75 miles of any NFL stadium… . So you don’t have to worry about blackouts with gamepass. It seems the only country that worries about it with Gamepass is the UK because of TV Contracts.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
Games that are blacked out will not appear on Gamepass. So as Andrew said, unless you are a Jags fan, there is no need to worry.

Andrew
mate unless youre a fan of the jaguars, its all sweet.
A blackout happens when the tickets for a game isnt sold out. The best example, is Cricket in Australia. Where One day games arent televised in the city they are played in if the game isnt sold out.t most games
the nfl sells out most games. (which the exception of the jags)
it is absolutley not anything to worry about when purchasing game pass

James
Hey I signed up a few weeks ago and I’ve just been watching old games – it’s awesome. One thing though – I work full time Mon – Fri which means I’m not going to be able to watch a lot of the games live. Will I be able to watch them as soon as the broadcast has finished? Do they get archived straight away?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
Nearly straight away.

Tunks
Its a struggle living in Australia during football season, but from your reports, this will ease my pain. Now I can see my two favorite teams, The Eagles and ‘whoever is playing Dallas’, without spending hours clicking through crap streams. First thing I’m going to do is watch the reply of Tony Romo getting hurt last year, while blasting a Jessica Simpson CD.
http://twitter.com/Oqudsi Omar Al-Qudsi
Is the $120 thing only in AUS? I’m living in Jordan and for me it shows up as $250.

http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Not sure sorry Omar….maybe ask http://twitter.com/nflgamepass

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walraf
what is the delay like from live pics? ie – how far behind foxtel
is it possible to use it for betting purposes?

http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Not too sure mate…its live but don’t know about delay. Hopefully one of the other guys can jump in and help out
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
It really depends on your internet connection speed, for me it varies, around 5-25 seconds depending on connection latency, usually sits at around 10. Also depends on how much your computer decides to buffer and since some computers have large amounts of RAM (like mine) the buffers can be quite large. . So as a general rule of thumb it will be at least 5 seconds late. If you get back to me with what kind of bets you would be making and/or your connection speed from http://www.speedtest.net I will be able to help you further

Sydneyguy1973
Can you post a picture of the second lowest quality – the 700MB per game? If that’s decent enough I think I might get this… Thanks for the article!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
You can see most of the pictures are in the second lowest quality, look in the bottom of each image, next to “Quality” it has 2 bars highlighted.

Fantfhnnasypills
Does the video player work like youtube?, where you can pause the video and then the entire video loads. Then you can play it back without buffering/lagging etc.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
I does a good job of buffering as you watch as it sits you behind the live feed, but yes you can pause it and it will buffer.

Fantfhnnasypills
Can I just pay someone $50 and share an account?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
If someone is willing, you could. I will warn people against this however because only one person can be logged in on an account at a time.

Botmann
nice write up. I did comparison video of a live NFL broadcast on cable versus the Game Pass service: The video is on YouTube: http://youtu.be/PP-S-6zRnnk
The TV tuner is a Silicondust HDHomerun (HDHR2). The video is more just to show difference in video quality between regular television on the NFL’s online streaming service at it’s highest bandrate. Seeing is believing.
Marty
It was great to find your site. I find it hard to find what NFL games are on each week on pay and FTA and will visit your site often. I did have a look at Game Pass and I’m very interested. Only thing is I would want to watch my Dolphins game on a Monday as I have all Monday’s off during the middle of the day but the preview video I watched showed the games available on the menu to the right had the SCORES displayed. I hate watching a game if I know the result, is there a way to look up the game you want to watch and not have the score displayed do you know?

http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Hey Marty.
Glad you like the site!
Those scores are only there if you choose to display them. Otherwise it should be normal to login and watch the game without seeing any scores beforehand. Andy

chrisswales
Does anyone know if I can use this pass during a trip to the UK?

http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Hey Chris
As long as you use the same email address to login on the site I can’t see why it wouldn’t work in the UK as they also offer the service there I believe
Andy

Thoraxe
Got this last Friday and it’s awesome.
Stuart
I’m an aussie expat living in Canada. The only price I can find is $260 or so, how are you guys getting it at such a low cost!!

http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Hey Stuart The price appears to vary by country and may have been a special price during the off-season.
If I can confirm this I will remove the pricing
Andy

botmann
The NFL released the Game Pass mobile app for smartphones/mobile devices. Works really good, and has a lot of the features for the PC version. The nice part, it’s a free app. No addition chargers to use GP on your mobile, aside from your mobile provider for data transfer.

Nicholasphutchins
when i try to download app it says not available in my country? any aussies having this same problem. i have a samsung galaxy s

Tanger
Heya Guys,
Got a Gamepass subscription and enjoying it alot so far. Just recently I got the app on my i-phone just wondering when watching a game on the phone are we looking at the same sort of download usage?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
Similar, but its dynamic usage based on your available speed so it depends. Haven’t really had a good bash at it yet so Ill get back to you
http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Same as Nathan Tanger…will test it out soon though.
Surely it would not be a good idea to stream a game via 3G as I presume it would eat up your data pretty quickly

Nicholas
Is it really that cheap? Your scree of the price is for Audio of the games not video, but I assume you would have noticed that had you paid for the wrong thing??

http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Hey Nicholas.
The price appears to vary by country and may have been a special price during the off-season.
Whereabouts are you located and what price are you seeing?Andy

Dinkum Finn
No play off games? I don’t even see the possibility of signing up for it at Gamepass. Kind of pointless to exclude the most interesting part of the season.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054951996 Nathan Patro
Playoffs are about an additional $50 so they are available

Dinkum Finn
? There is nothing on the site about playoffs now. Do they offer them later in the season? Can you subscribe just for the playoff games?

cletus
I want to watch the Lion’s games on Monday or Tuesday nights and want to watch the full game without finding out the score.
When does the full game get loaded to the site? Is every game available to watch the full game? I don’t want to watch live, just a day or so later.

Ravens #1
I would also like to know this. Does every game from the season stay uploaded and is there to be viewed whenever, or can you only watch them live?

http://nfldownunder.com NFL Down Under
Every game since Week 1 of the 2009 NFL season can be viewed whenever and however you want aswell as live games!

Nicholasphutchins
You can watch live and on demand they are loaded immediatly. I’m a huge lions fan and watch every game monday morning in australia after its over.

Nicholasphutchins
NFL Down Under ,
any luck with the mobile app. I’m in australia and says it can’t be downloaded in my country (doesn’t say if it doesn’t know my country or if its australia just says “my country”) anyone have the app here? i need it for android.
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Antony Ciccone
Just signed up an hour ago, Saturday night, and can’t wait for Monday morning to watch games live and then see other games throughout the week. Grew up a Cowboys and Dolphins fan, (From Miami) and was living in Atlanta the last seven years, so of course now a Dirty Bird fan. Moved to Sydney in June to be with wife. the NFL Game Pass may keep me down under forever! THANK YOU! Looking forward to some playoff viewing parties!!!
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