How To Watch Out-of-Network NFL Games With a VPN

No matter how you stream NFL games this season, you'll likely run into regional restrictions that prevent you from streaming all the games you want to watch.

Luckily, using a virtual private network (VPN) makes it easy to mask your location so you can swap states at the click of a button. Your internet connection will look like it's coming for a completely different place despite you still being comfortable at home.

Here's how to watch out-of-market NFL games with a VPN, plus the best VPN for the task.

How to watch out-of-market football games

The NFL doesn't make it easy to watch your favorite team if you don't live in the geographic region the team plays in. For example, if you're a New York Jets fan living in North Carolina, you will get a few Jets games broadcast on your local network throughout the season, but you won't have access to every game.

If you want to watch an out-of-market NFL game, you have a couple of options including getting a pricey NFL Sunday Ticket subscription or using a VPN.

With a VPN, you can connect to a VPN server that's in an area where the game is available. We recommend NordVPN because not only is it one of the best and most reliable VPNs available, it also has plenty of servers all over the United States.

When you're connected to a VPN, all internet traffic that comes from the browser or device is read as being from the VPN's server location, not your physical one. So if you're unable to watch a game from your location, you can connect to another state where the game is being shown and see if you can get access that way.

Here's a step-by-step guide:

1. Choose a VPN for your NFL-viewing lineup. Ideally, you want a VPN with lots of servers in the U.S.
2. Download and install the VPN app on the device you use to watch football. For example, if you watch out-of-market games on your phone, you want to install a VPN on your iPhone or Android. If you're using a SmartTV, you even install a VPN on your router.
3. Log in to your VPN and connect to a server in a different state where the game is being broadcast. This is mostly the team's home market.
4. Use your favorite service to stream the game as usual.
5. Enjoy the game!

Streaming services for watching the NFL from anywhere

NFL is not only one of the most popular sports leagues, it's also one of the most fragmented in terms of television rights. That means not one streaming service can give you access to every single game this season, but some do give you more coverage overall.

Here's a list of streaming services that will be playing NFL games for this season. Note that some services have exclusive rights over certain games.

How to watch out-of-market NFL games with NFL Sunday Ticket

NFL Sunday Ticket is one of the best ways to catch (almost) every NFL game this season, but you can only watch out-of-market Sunday games. You'll have to grab YouTube TV as well to get locally televised Sunday games and national games. This is one of the most complete options you can get, but also one of the most expensive. The Sunday Ticket alone costs $66/mo and adding on YouTube TV brings it up to $102.24/mo.

The downside here is you may still be hit with geographical restrictions, especially if you leave the U.S. during the NFL season. Luckily, VPNs work with NFL Sunday Ticket as well, though you may need to also use a GPS spoofer on your phone to convince YouTube TV that you're in a different location, since it'll likely ask you to verify via your phone's location.

Save money on out-of-market NFL games with DAZN Canada

A more cost effective option of catching every NFL game, including those that are out of your market, is to sign up for DAZN Canada, which shows all NFL content in one subscription (except for the exclusive games). This option costs CA$34.99/mo, with gift cards available on Canadian Amazon for CA$20/mo.

Now the trick here is that DAZN Canada is only available in Canada, so any other football fan may be out of luck...if it weren't for VPNs, that is.

Here's how you can get a DAZN Canada subscription from any country:

1. Purchase a DAZN Canada subscription gift card from Amazon.ca.
2. Turn on your VPN of choice and connect to Canada.
3. Go to dazn.com/en-ca.
4. Sign up using a Canadian postal code (you can grab one from Google Maps).
5. Redeem the gift card as your payment.
6. Remember to connect to your VPN every time you go to watch a game on DAZN.

If DAZN is able to detect that you're using a VPN, we've had success in the past by simply switching to a different server in Canada and trying again. This is similar to what we have to do for international Netflix access as well, and usually just means the site has recognized that particular IP address as being from a VPN. If you run into this problem often, having a VPN with a dedicated ID address is one of the best solutions.

FAQs

Bottom line

The easiest way to watch out-of-network games is by purchasing the NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube TV, but using a VPN to change your virtual location to each game's local network is significantly cheaper. 

Whenever you're hit with regional restrictions on your streaming service of choice, using the right VPN to change your location makes it much easier to convince streaming services that you're in market for the game you want to watch.