AFN To Show NFL Conference Title Games Amid Shutdown

The American Forces Network "will be up" this afternoon, and will "air both the NFC and AFC title games as originally planned" despite the government shutdown. The Pentagon yesterday had said that AFN would "remain unavailable if the shutdown continued" into today. The NFL's response was to "make the games available online for free through NFL Game Pass, but only at USO Centers." It is "unclear who reversed the initial decision, or why, or what the reasoning for the initial decision was in the first place" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 1/21).

Meanwhile, a "striking casualty of the budget impasse will be the empty skies in Foxborough" for the Jaguars-Patriots AFC Championship. Four fighter jets that had been "expected to fly over the stadium just before the game were grounded by the shutdown" (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/21).