How can out-of-state fans watch the Pats in 2014?

Last year on this Forum I learned about the Madden 25th anniversary edition that came with access to watching games - it was reasonably priced and worked well (except for one game). The previous year, there was a way to get games on a computer from DirecTV directly, for a price, without subscribing, that wasn't continued. Living in Chicago, I'm eager to find some way to watch the Pats (other than switching our cable provider to DirecTV). I hope those of you who follow this type of business angle will keep all of us posted on ways to watch games this season! Thanks, Judy

Illegal streams. Thats what I use when the Pats aren't on TV here, so usually about half of the games in a season.

CelticPatriot said:

Illegal streams. Thats what I use when the Pats aren't on TV here, so usually about half of the games in a season.

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thats what i often do, too bad the picture quality isn't better.....sometimes i go to a sports bar

You can get Sunday Ticket through Sony (PS3/4) for whatever the subscription price is without having to sign up for DirecTV..

DaBruinz said:

You can get Sunday Ticket through Sony (PS3/4) for whatever the subscription price is without having to sign up for DirecTV..

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Yep, that's probably the best option for those who don't wish to change their cable provider (I pay for both Comcast cable/internet and Directv for the Sunday Ticket in the fall).

You can purchase a Sony Playstation 3 or 4 used in many places, then use it to sign up for the Sunday Ticket.

Make sure they are high powered.

I have the same problem living in a suburb of Chicago. Last year I had the Madden with sunday ticket and it was amazing. I am hopefully they will release it again but I really think they lost their ass on that selling it for only $100 and i don't see that happening again.

Illegal streams are way too unreliable and ****ty quality.

The options are sports bar, a new madden release, or buying sunday ticket direct from them direct.

http://www.directv.com/sports/nfl

So i will probably use this with a combination of this webpage to see what games are on normal tv and try to buy it monthly since it looks like there are several games this year in a row that will be on normal tv

http://506sports.com/nfl/

A good summary of the legal options can be found here.

And here is a reasonably intelligent discussion of the streaming and standard DirecTV deals.

Here is a look at what games for the Patriots that will and will not be available out of town. There are five prime-time games, and two other that will be available almost everywhere.

506 Sports - NFL

Week 1, Patriots at Miami (early)
Will NOT be available in Baltimore, Jacksonville, KC, Ohio, NYC, NJ, PA, NoCal, TN
Should be available in Tampa, Buffalo. May be available in other markets such as GA, LA.
Top competition for other CBS games are Cin-Bal and Cle-Pit

Week 2, Patriots at Minnesota (early)
Will NOT be available in Atlanta, Cincy, Jacksonville, Washington, Miami, Buffalo, Tenn, Cle, NYC, and Carolina markets
It's a CBS doubleheader; Pats' game main competition for other neutral areas is Atlanta-Cincy.

Week 3, Oakland at Patriots (early)
Will NOT be available in Bal, Buf, Cin, Cle, Det, Hous, Indy, Jax, NYC, NO, Phil, SD, StL, Tenn markets
Another CBS DH; no compelling early matchups for neutral markets

Week 4, Patriots at Kansas City
Monday night game, available everywhere on ESPN

Week 5, Cincinnati at Patriots
Sunday night game, available everywhere on NBC

Week 6, Patriots at Buffalo (early)
Will NOT be available in Atl, Bal, Cle, Cin, Den, Jax, Mia, Min, NYC, Pitt, Tampa, Tenn markets
This game historically gets no distribution outside of the stations that always broadcast the Pats' and Bills' games. Neutral areas will most likely get the Broncos-Jets early, or SD-Oak late for the sole CBS game.

Week 7, Jets at Patriots
Thursday night game, available everywhere on both CBS and NFLN

Week 8, Chicago at Patriots (early)
Will NOT be available in Ariz, Atl, Car, Cin, Det, Jax, KC, Min, NYC, Phil, Sea, StL, TB, Ten markets
This game is on Fox, but CBS has the DH this week. Most neutral sites will probably go with Sea-Car early, or Phi-Ari if they have to do a late game.

Week 9, Denver at Patriots (late)
Will NOT be available in Oakland/SF or Seattle; will be available everywhere else.

Week 10 - Bye

Week 11, Patriots at Indy
Sunday night game, available everywhere on NBC

Week 12, Detroit at Patriots (early)
Will NOT be available in Atl, Buf, Chi, GB, Hou, Ind, Min, Phi, TB markets
Tough call as to what neutral markets will choose; will Fox want to promote an all-NFC matchup (GB-Min, TB-Chi early; AZ-Sea, late), or take advantage of one of the two times they get a chance to air a Pats game?

Week 13, Patriots at Green Bay (late)
Will NOT be available in Arizona or Atlanta markets.
Will be available everywhere else. Expect plenty of hype; unless there is an unfortunate and unforeseen injury, this will be the first-ever game with Brady and Rodgers as the two quarterbacks.

Week 14, Patriots at San Diego
Sunday night game, available everywhere on NBC

Week 15, Miami at Patriots (early)
Will NOT be available in Atl, Bal, Buf, Car, Cin, Cle, Den, Det, Hou, Ind, Jax, KC, NYC, Oak, Pit SD, Tenn markets
Early game on CBS with a Fox DH, so there won't be much distribution of this game. Might be available in Seattle, that's about it.

Week 16, Patriots at Jets (early)
Will NOT be available in Bal, Car, Chi, Cle, Hou, KC, Mia, NO, Pit, TB
It's a CBS DH, so this should get some distribution in neutral areas too, but it a lot will depend on which teams are and are not in the playoff hunt.

Week 17, Buffalo at Patriots (early)
Right now it's scheduled to be an early game, but that could change based on team's records and the playoff picture. Again, historically this game gets no distribution beyond the New England stations that always carry the Pats games, and the western New York stations that always carry the Bills games.

Get a big fat dish, like 8 feet or bigger that is capable of receiving C-band signals. Point the dish to a Canadian satellite called ANIK F1R(107.3 W). Look for the channel CTV Atlantic(it may not be labeled). They'll show all the 1 PM Patriots game. Not sure about the 4 PM games but generally those will be nationally televised games so you should be ok.

This is all perfectly legal but you just have to remember that CTV is under no obligation to you or anyone else receiving the unencrypted signal. They can take the channel on the satellite offline when they want, encrypt it when they want. So I wouldn't just get a big fat dish just for that. But hey it's a thought!

I've also read about the past few Superbowls being displayed in mpeg4 at 20-40 Megabits.(Wild Feeds) Far superior to anything available from an Over the air Antenna.

Disclaimer: I don't own a dish, or have ever. It's just what I've read! If you decide to go down that route, be prepared to do your research!

JudyPatFan said:

Last year on this Forum I learned about the Madden 25th anniversary edition that came with access to watching games - it was reasonably priced and worked well (except for one game). The previous year, there was a way to get games on a computer from DirecTV directly, for a price, without subscribing, that wasn't continued. Living in Chicago, I'm eager to find some way to watch the Pats (other than switching our cable provider to DirecTV). I hope those of you who follow this type of business angle will keep all of us posted on ways to watch games this season! Thanks, Judy

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Honestly Judy, aside from DaBruinz's advice about getting a used Playstation, your best bet may just to consider getting Directv. They have a lot of great features. If it were up to me and they somehow offered internet, I'd ditch my Comcast/Xfinity altogether.

Edit: You do have the option of "suspending" your service for up to 6 mos per calendar year, so I just suspend my Directv account from the months of Jan-July. That helps to avoid the fees of paying both cable + Directv, since I really only use it for the Sunday Ticket anyway.

It does get a bit expensive with the additional 100 bucks a month during football season, but my wife and I are both fans of out of market teams, so the extra 600 bucks a year keeps us happy and guarantees that we'll both be able to watch our games every Sunday. At the end of it all, it's probably the equivalent to seeing 2 games per year in person--cost wise. Obviously, I only keep the bare minimum programming since I really don't need the pay channels through the Directv. When you add that 30 bucks or so per month to the spread out Sunday Ticket package over 5 months, it comes out to about 90 bucks per month + tax.

I have the pats app to get pbp. Otherwise I try and watch it on Tv. Usually I just get the pbp for several games and get to watch about half of them. Sucks but oh well, nothing I can do

Aereo was my preferred option last year after the NFL Gamepass NFL **** got a write up in freaking Forbes of all places and was promptly shut down.

This year I'm using slingbox but I've also toyed with the idea of using a hosting solution in a country that gets Gamepass for free and setting up a proxy on it.

fnordcircle said:

Aereo was my preferred option last year after the NFL Gamepass NFL **** got a write up in freaking Forbes of all places and was promptly shut down.

This year I'm using slingbox but I've also toyed with the idea of using a hosting solution in a country that gets Gamepass for free and setting up a proxy on it.

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How would you use Slingbox? Do you have someone that will set it up with their TV and then let you stream from them or am I missing another option? I've never used one before.

Sticky Caulk said:

How would you use Slingbox? Do you have someone that will set it up with their TV and then let you stream from them or am I missing another option? I've never used one before.

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That's the only way it can work. I pay for a family member's internet back home so I'm going to use that connection.

supafly said:

Yep, that's probably the best option for those who don't wish to change their cable provider (I pay for both Comcast cable/internet and Directv for the Sunday Ticket in the fall).

You can purchase a Sony Playstation 3 or 4 used in many places, then use it to sign up for the Sunday Ticket.

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NFL Sunday Ticket is no longer with Playstation. It will now be on XBOX.

Another route you can take is XBMC Google it and YouTube it.

http://www.pastapadre.com/2013/09/03/what-the-nfl-deal-with-microsoft-will-mean-for-the-360-and-xbox-one

If you are thinking of going the PlayStation route, check your local pawn shop. Its one of the most pawned items, so you can usually get one at a very reasonable price.

I have DirectTV and its waaay better than cable, plus now they have a HD DVR that its the only box you have to wire up, the rest of your TVs run off a wireless connection. They have on demand now too. You do need an internet connection, I still have to pay the cable company for that.

Also if you already have Direct TV, sometimes if you call and try to cancel Sunday ticket (before the season starts) they will offer you a discounted rate to keep it. We all did that a few years ago here and basically got it for half price.

Before fnord shared some great info with me, I was either using a stream or going to a sports bar around the area to watch the game. Gamepass then went up in smoke and I went right back to doing that. Streams suck, though, so when I can I make every attempt to just get to the Ale House early to get a good seat.

fnordcircle said:

That's the only way it can work. I pay for a family member's internet back home so I'm going to use that connection.

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With Slingbox, aren't you stuck watching whatever program your family member is watching? So if he/she decides to change the channel to American Ninja while the game is on, you'll also be watching American Ninja right? How does that work?

fnordcircle said:

That's the only way it can work. I pay for a family member's internet back home so I'm going to use that connection.

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Furiously working to hack a re-direct