Whether you’re a first time fan of the K League or a diehard for years now, it gives us all great joy to say that the K League will start tomorrow. Tomorrow at 7 PM KST/11 AM BST/6 AM EST, the reigning K League champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors FC will take on Korean FA Cup champions Suwon Samsung Bluewings FC. If you want to read a match preview, I suggest checking out our friends at K League United. They have a match preview right here. The more pressing question I want to address for you is this: how do I watch any match in the K League?
The Basics
Depending on where you are, the K League may have negotiated a broadcast deal with a channel in your country, either for an OTT digital streaming service, or for a normal broadcast channel. This tweet below has links to all the official deals confirmed thus far:
Some of these deals are more significant than others so I’ll run down the ones that I have the most details on. For Australia, Optus Sport will be broadcasting 2 matches a week. SportDigital will stream 4 matches a week on their streaming service. Copa90 will have a match of the week on their YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/Copa90football) so definitely subscribe to that. We can confirm that Copa90’s match will be available to YouTube viewers in North America and the UK.
Tomorrow’s Season Opener
The K League is pulling out all the stops for tomorrow’s match. In a one-off affair, the K League will be broadcasting the match live with commentary from Australian Simon Hill. There is more info on the details here:
The Nitty Gritty
Now let’s go into the weeds. With no confirmed North American broadcaster, what to do if your team doesn’t feature on Copa90’s match of the week? Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to find the right stream for your team and how to navigate the Korean channels to find the match you want. For starters, here’s the opening weekend schedule:
If you can already read and understand this schedule, I think you can be safe in knowing you can figure out where your team will play. However, if this is your first time seeing a K League team name written in Korean, I’m here to help you.
Now that you’re familiar with the Korean letters for your team, you’re ready to journey to the website of a Korean broadcaster with a VPN installed. We have a handy guide here with some recommendations for VPNs and streaming sites to use to find matches. In addition, here are the websites for each K League broadcaster in Korea.
JTBC Golf&Sports: http://jtbcgolfnsports.joins.com/
IB Sports: http://ibsportstv.com/webuser/page/main.html
SkySports Korea: http://skylifetv.co.kr/skySports/ (Doesn’t look like they have an option to watch online)
생활채육TV: http://www.berrymedia.co.kr/bbs/group.php?gr_id=sports (Also doesn’t seem to have an option to watch online)
Finally, it will be important to use Naver TV as well if you’re on a mobile device. Naver TV is available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play. Here’s the main website for that on desktop: https://tv.naver.com/l/livehome. All K League matches should be available there. If there are any further news updates on broadcast deals, we will update you via our Twitter account (@taegeuktavern).
If you have any other questions, please ask them in the comments. For now, enjoy the K League and stay safe and healthy!
Watching Korean baseball on ESPN has been surreal. One can only hope K League makes it here too… well one day. On a side, what a time we live in where korea is everywhere, instead of “is that in China” comment I used to get growing up.
Yeah, it’s great that KBO came to ESPN. The K League and the global broadcast rights partner has said they’re still in negotiations with a lot of countries for K League matches so hopefully we get more news soon. It has been great for us as Korean Americans to see ourselves so much more represented in American culture right?