- A Nationally broadcast game that would not be available live would include a game aired on FOX, ESPN, NBC, and CBS. No Local games: games airing locally within your market will not be available to watch live within NFL Game Pass as it still abides by Local blackout restrictions. Check your local listings for where to watch the game.
- Sep 10, 2018 If blackouts are ruining your football watching experience, one great solution is to use an NFL Game Pass International package with a Virtual Private Network (VPN). The trick is to use a VPN to access a server where blackouts don’t apply.
The National Football League television blackout policies are the strictest television blackout policies among the four major professional sports leagues in North America. From 1973 through 2014, the NFL maintained a blackout policy that stated that a home game cannot be televised in the team's local market if 85% of the tickets are not sold out 72 hours prior to its start time. The official source for NFL news, schedules, stats, scores and more.
If you want to watch live NFL legally in the UK, there are two choices: subscribe to Game Pass or Sky Sports.
Both have their critics, but if you want to see almost every game, there is only one choice: get Game Pass.
At £139.99 for a ‘Season Pro’ annual subscription (the restrictive ‘Season Essential’ is not a sensible option even at a cut-price £84.99), the official video streaming service of the NFL allows you to watch in HD on any device.
The revamped Game Pass allows NFL fans to watch the vast majority of games live
Watch Blackout Nfl Games Live
During games, there are statistics galore for the fantasy nut (or even for the old-fashioned fan), as well as full DVR. That means you can go back in time at any moment to re-watch key plays of the game, both during live broadcasts and on-demand.
You also see full American coverage of games - yes, including the multiple fast food adverts - meaning there is the chance to follow the fortune-teller-esque antics of new CBS analyst Tony Romo.
For those who have responsibilities and may not have the luxury of watching sport at silly hours, the option to see 40-minute condensed games may be a godsend come Friday, Monday or Tuesday mornings.
Also included in the annual subscription is access to RedZone, the seven-hour Sunday night bonanza which sees preened presenter Scott Hanson guide viewers through every touchdown, without so much as a commercial break.
The screening service allows subscribers to pause and rewind play during games
With NFL Network on tap, feel free to tune in to Good Morning Football, NFL Total Access or NFL Playbook, while Coaches Films offer the chance to analyse every play from camera angles used by NFL coaches, scouts and game officials.
There is also a multitude of archive film, some of it quite magnificent.
A raft of NFL Films are at the touch of a touchscreen, as are behind-the-scenes gems like Hard Knocks and All or Nothing and a library of A Football Life.
With Super Bowl archives and game archives, there is a lot to look at. There is even a stash of the BBC’s highlights and preview shows.
Marshawn Lynch (centre) returned to the NFL after a season's hiatus with his beloved Oakland
Sounds great, doesn't it? Well yes, but there are caveats. None bigger than the cursed blackout.
Sky Sports show two games on Sunday night, and despite paying to see 'All*' live games per week (note the asterisk), Game Pass subscribers can't see them for 24 hours after their conclusion. If there's a bigger scandal in sports broadcasting, I'm yet to see it.
So bear this in mind if you want to see each and every down of your chosen team.
There can be issues while streaming games. In the experience of the past two weeks, it is remedied by a reboot, but it is an irk nevertheless.
These Green Bay fans may regret not watching their team at home after losing in Atlanta
In its previous guise, archive material has stretched back five years. This latest version sees them cut short at two.
Long-time Game Pass subscribers will be equally annoyed at the £10 price hike, not to mention last year's 'annual' subscription ending abruptly in June.
So the new-fangled Game Pass is not perfect, far from it. But whether you are a long-time NFL fan or a newcomer keen to get to know the game, then the service does enough to justify its price tag.
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The NFL season has now entered week No. 5, which means a lot of football on a lot of TV channels. And thanks to multiple streaming options, you don't have to hang around a television set just to catch your favorite team.
The NFL lets you watch its games on the platform of your choice, whether you're looking to stream from a phone, laptop, set-top box or anything in-between.
The methods for watching NFL games change often as the league signs new contracts and streaming services change their policies, and we're always updating this guide with the latest broadcast info.
With so many good matchups, you're probably looking for a way to catch the action online. Here are the best ways to live stream NFL games.
For Cable and Satellite Subscribers
NFL RedZone: If you have a cable TV subscription, NFL RedZone lets you watch a football game's most exciting moments. The service broadcasts live coverage from every game on a given Sunday, but only when a team is in the 'red zone,' or about to potentially score a touchdown. Because it also gives you real-time fantasy stats and extended highlights, it's especially useful for fantasy-football fans.
NFL RedZone games air between 1 p.m. ET and the end of the late-afternoon games on Sundays during the NFL season. You can watch RedZone from your cable or satellite provider's streaming service or on a variety of apps for smartphones, tablets and connected devices like Apple TV and PlayStation 4. You can also watch games in a web browser.
NFL Sunday Ticket: DirecTV subscribers have one of the simplest paths to streaming full NFL games in NFL Sunday Ticket. This service streams live games in their entirety to televisions, computers, Android and iOS devices, and game consoles. Sunday Ticket applies only to out-of-market games.
You can also get NFL Sunday Ticket as a stand-alone service — but only if you live in an area that doesn't get DirecTV service.
Watch ESPN: If you subscribe to a cable package that includes ESPN, and most do, you can stream live ESPN programming from just about any device. Simply use your computer, smartphone, set-top box, game console or another connected device to download the ESPN app, then sign in with your cable providerꞌs information. When ESPN airs Monday Night Football, log into the app and enjoy the game.
Cable-Free Streaming Subscriptions
If you really want to watch football but donꞌt have any desire to clutter up your TV with a cable subscription, Sling TV provides a middle ground. This streaming live-TV service offers ESPN on its $25-per-month Sling Orange service, and Fox and Fox Sports on its $25-per-month Sling Blue service.
To get both ESPN and Fox costs $40 per month, which puts Sling somewhere in the neighborhood of a traditional cable package. But itꞌs much easier to watch Sling remotely, and it works with a huge variety of mobile devices, game consoles and smart TVs.
A current promotion is knocking 40% off the normal $25 monthly rate, so you'd just pay $15 for SlingTV.
MORE: A Guide to Sling TV: Packages, Channels, Pricing and More
NFL Game Pass: There is one extremely easy way to watch any NFL game you want online, but it comes with a huge caveat: You have to wait until the game is over. Still, if you can keep yourself from finding out last nightꞌs score, NFL Game Pass will charge you $74.99 per year for the privilege of streaming any game to your computer, mobile device or set-top box.
Game Pass also lets you watch select preseason games, listen to local radio broadcasts of games and watch condensed versions that squeeze an entire game into 30 minutes. While watching the game in real time is arguably half the fun of live sports, thereꞌs something to be said for setting your own schedule.
CBS All Access: CBS All Access is another ideal option for watching games online. In addition to a back catalog of CBS shows, plus some streaming-only shows like Star Trek: Discovery, this service also lets you watch your local CBS station and the game in your market as it airs.
For $6 per month, you can watch the service on most set-top boxes, gaming consoles, mobile devices and computers with limited commercial interruption. If you fork over $10 a month for the service, you'll get all that commercial-free.
Amazon: Amazon is now streaming live NFL games after it acquired the contract for Thursday Night Football broadcast rights. As long as you have Amazon Prime Video, you can watch Thursday Night Football on the service without ever needing to pay extra. That said, the NFL has retained the rights to five Thursday Night Football games that it airs exclusively on the NFL Network. Amazon Prime Video cannot air those games.
Bypass NFL Game Pass Blackouts with a VPN
Some internet users seem to have found a workaround with NFL Game Pass that lets them watch games live by using a VPN service.
Many online guides suggest that if you use a VPN to make it look like you're located in Europe, and use that to sign up for the European version of NFL Game Pass, you'll be able to watch any game you want live. Nearly every European country and former Soviet republic can access NFL Game Pass, but you might not want to pick the United Kingdom or Ireland as your 'location,' because some blackouts apply there, too.
We've evaluated many VPN services, and our top pick is ExpressVPN. It meets the VPN needs of the vast majority of users, offering outstanding compatibility with most devices and impressive connection speeds. It's also affordable at $12.95 per month. (Signing up for longer periods of six months or a year reduces the cost even more.)
Our favorite VPN service, ExpressVPN costs as little as $6.77 per month if you sign up for a one-year contract, and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Cheap and secure, NordVPN is just $2.99/month for a three-year contract, uses 2048-bit encryption, and makes it easy to use streaming services.
Costing $6.49 per month for a one-year contract, IPVanish lets you have up to 10 simultaneous connections, and works on Mac, Windows, Android and iOS.
Free Streaming Options
Yahoo Sports: The Yahoo Sports app for iOS and Android has replaced the old Verizon NFL Mobile app. It streams every NFL game that's broadcast in your local TV market to your smartphone or tablet for free, including Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football. You can also sign into your NFL Game Pass subscription and stream it from the Yahoo app.
DIY Streaming Solutions
HD Antenna Streaming Services: This option involves a bit of DIY industriousness, but if you want to catch local games, why not just set up your own stream? Services like Channel Master and Tablo allow you to hook up an HD antenna to a DVR box, then broadcast the stream — either live or recorded — to a set-top box, mobile device or computer just about anywhere in the world.
The cost varies depending on the HD antenna you get and the service you use, but the local channels themselves are free, and you wonꞌt have to jump through any NFL-sponsored hoops.