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

There's a service from NFL.com where you can watch any game online for something like $19-29/year. It works pretty well. The downside is that you have to watch after the game has aired live. But if you don't live in New England, it is unlikely somebody is going to blurt out the score before you watch it.

Having just moved out of the region, I plan on the Direct TV plan. The couch+big-screen+beer+son is part of the experience.

I live in CT, so I get both NBC NY and NBC CT. Most of the time, they are on NBC CT channel!

What a shame there's no A la carte NFL sunday ticket. Just pay for the game you want. I imagine Directv would lose a lot of revenue doing that though.

DaPimp32 said:

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/2013/09/0...-microsoft-will-mean-for-the-360-and-xbox-one

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Oh, really? I was not aware of that. I haven't used it myself, but was under the impression that it was still an option.

I'm glad you chimed in with this--thanks for the information!

I had the ps3 sunday ticket last year. Stream was subpar. I haven't had cable/directv for over a year and i've saved so much money. I'm gonna settle with OTA + stream + rewind this year, i think. But I may cave and just get dtv again because of Revis. lol.

I'm from NY and I'll be going to home opener at Gillette so that's one way of doin it. I'll see them twice vs Jets their always televised here. There will be Nationally Televised Games on TV and rest I can see different ways.

A VPN and NFL Game Pass seems to offer the best quality for the money for any game that's not televised nationally. Free streams that aren't exactly legal just look so bad but I suppose you can't complain for the price.

nabwong said:

I had the ps3 sunday ticket last year. Stream was subpar. I haven't had cable/directv for over a year and i've saved so much money. I'm gonna settle with OTA + stream + rewind this year, i think. But I may cave and just get dtv again because of Revis. lol.

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I've never seen the stream from the PS3, but I've heard that it had some problems. There's nothing worse than being caught up in the moment and having it buffer and pixelate like an early 2000s camera at 7-11.

I live in a condo environment which does not allow the dish, but since I am still a subscriber and had it at my last place prior to getting married and moving to my current location, I am able to pull the online feed from the phone/laptop/PC (cue the Manning brothers commercial) and use a special connector bought at the Apple store to plug it into the HDMI port on the television.

Since I'm using the actual Directv online feed which is made for a smaller device like the iphone or ipad, it works out quite well. I very rarely have any pixelation or problems---maybe once or twice a game for a couple of seconds apiece. I suppose that's a small price to pay for the conversion over to the bigger TV screen.

Ok boys and girls, this is going to be a long post, and is going to be a little technical, but I just gave this a test run and it seems to be working as expected. I will try to keep this as short, to the point, and easy to follow as possible, so bare with me.

As many have mentioned, there IS an official way for you to watch NFL games live, through a steaming device (computer, tablet, phone, etc). It's called GamePass, and it's offered by the NFL to those who do not reside in the United States. I'm not sure specifically what countries it's available to, but it seems to be pretty much anywhere in Europe as of my latest test.

The problem is that even if you do a Google Search for say "NFL GamePass 2014 UK", you will be be blocked from finding the appropriate link if your IP address is coming from the United States. As such, you need a way to circumvent this and spoof the NFL's network into thinking you're actually somewhere outside the US.

A) Original Google Search with US IP Address:


B) First Link Page with US IP Address:


C) First Link Result with non-US IP Address:




As you can see, you get two COMPLETELY different results depending on where the NFL thinks you live. Personally, I'd like to give them to giant middle fingers for that.

So the next logical question you may have, is HOW do I go about getting my NFL GamePass?! Follow these steps in order.

1) Download a VPN that will give you unlimited bandwidth and a fast-ish connection. I say "fast-ish" because there is truly a limit on how fast your speeds will be with a VPN. For that reason, I recommend downloading the CyberGhost "Snowden" Edition, for $9.99 for an entire YEAR. Most VPNs will require you to pay a monthly access fee of $5-10 for dedicated servers, faster speeds, unlimited bandwidth, etc. You get all of those in the Snowden Edition of CyberGhost. I'm not pimping this out for personal gain, it just happens to be the best solution IMO, and the one I'm using. (Please tell me if anyone else happens to find a VPN with better speed/quality for a comparable price! I'm getting about 8-10mbs down with Cyberghost.)

Go to the below link to access it:
https://store.cyberghostvpn.com/848...wdenEdition_0614A999&language=en&currency=usd

Update:
I have run some quality tests using Google Chrome and was actually able to launch the video stream WITHOUT BEING CONNECTED to the VPN, which resulted in SUPERIOR quality. I'm not sure if this is a result of Google Caching my IP address when I logged in, but it SEEMS that as long as you connect to the VPN before launching the browser, then disconnect, it will allow you to use your home network without the drop in video quality. Will update as I play around with it more.

2) Once you have downloaded the VPN, select your "Simulated Country" to somewhere in Europe. I decided on connecting to one in The Netherlands. Then hit the giant Yellowish toggle button in the middle of your screen to actually connect (or however your VPN does it if you have a different one). It will take a few moments, so don't worry if it seems a little slow.





3) With your VPN connected to a non-US location, go ahead and fire up Google and search for "NFL GamePass UK 2014" or something similar. You should get the new link result as indicated in screenshot C from earlier in the post:


As you can see, I was able to proceed to checkout in the below screenshot. I used PayPal as my method of payment to avoid potentially having a US-registered credit card kick me back.



4) Once I verified my PayPal info....everything completed as expected.

I WIN!

Again, sorry for the long post, but I truly hope this helps anybody who is out of market like myself watch the games that they want to, both Patriots and Non-Patriots alike!

Thank you for the great post. My only question would be does the paypal account verification process have any potential to kick you back out as well, since most paypal accts are tied in to a US based credit card? Or is your paypal acct not tied to any specific credit card?

I'd like to cut and paste this onto my desktop, in case of emergency--although I think my wife's paypal acct has her US based credit card information for some reason. I think we may have used it to automatically deposit funds into her acct. Do you think if she removes this, it would be alright?

I don't/can't have a paypal acct, since I owed them money from about 10 yrs ago (just being honest).

supafly said:

Thank you for the great post. My only question would be does the paypal account verification process have any potential to kick you back out as well, since most paypal accts are tied in to a US based credit card? Or is your paypal acct not tied to any specific credit card?

I'd like to cut and paste this onto my desktop, in case of emergency--although I think my wife's paypal acct has her US based credit card information for some reason. I think we may have used it to automatically deposit funds into her acct. Do you think if she removes this, it would be alright?

I don't/can't have a paypal acct, since I owed them money from about 10 yrs ago (just being honest).

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Doesn't look like it! My PayPal account is US-based and it worked like a charm. I just used an automatic bank-withdrawal, although I do have credit cards attached to the PayPal account, just didn't use them as the method of payment. That being said, I encountered no problems whatsoever!

Simple Jack's Brother said:

Doesn't look like it! My PayPal account is US-based and it worked like a charm. I just used an automatic bank-withdrawal, although I do have credit cards attached to the PayPal account, just didn't use them as the method of payment. That being said, no problems whatsoever!

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Thank you very much for the helpful info. I will use this as an emergency backup plan for the upcoming season. One last question--does your paypal acct link to your bank account by any chance? Sorry for the questions, I'm just trying to cover every base.

supafly said:

Thank you very much for the helpful info. I will use this as an emergency backup plan for the upcoming season. One last question--does your paypal acct link to your bank account by any chance? Sorry for the questions, I'm just trying to cover every base.

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Yup, my PayPal account is definitely linked to my bank account! I also have US credit cards on there. But when I checked out, I just selected the bank-withdrawal option, and didn't give me any issues.

Simple Jack's Brother said:

Yup, my PayPal account is definitely linked to my bank account! I also have US credit cards on there. But when I checked out, I just selected the bank-withdrawal option, and didn't give me any issues.

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Freaking awesome. Thanks again. I bet you helped a ton of people both in + out of the country. I love the step by step walkthrough. Just great! I've heard people talk about Virtual Private Networks plenty of times here, but have never done it myself.

supafly said:

Freaking awesome. Thanks again. I bet you helped a ton of people both in + out of the country. I love the step by step walkthrough. Just great! I've heard people talk about Virtual Private Networks plenty of times here, but have never done it myself.

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My pleasure! I know it can sound pretty daunting, so I figured I'd try and lay it out for those who might have been afraid to take the plunge previously.

**Also, please check my update I just added in the tutorial about being able to connect to the video stream while not on the VPN.

If anyone has any other questions, feel free to let me know!

Simple Jack's Brother said:

If anyone has any other questions, feel free to let me know!

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Will do. Thanks again for the helpful tutorial.

Great post, Simple Jack's Brother -- and alarming for me. The NFL are just about to charge me $269.99 to renew Gamepass. Just throwing another 70 bucks on there for fun. Thanks, fellas!

Mike the Brit said:

Great post, Simple Jack's Brother -- and alarming for me. The NFL are just about to charge me $269.99 to renew Gamepass. Just throwing another 70 bucks on there for fun. Thanks, fellas!

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I actually had the $269.99 price pop up at one point while I was testing this...the price point might have to do with your IP address as well. Make sure you play around with a couple different countries if you're still seeing the $269.99 price, and clear your cache/history if that's the case. Google's incognito mode is a good way to ensure you're not seeing anything due to a cookie or cache.

Awesome post Simple Jack's brother.

i had a few questions if you don't mind..

1.) It sounds like you have not tested this with an actual game yet and there could be some concerns over the quality if it was streamed through the VPN hence your test, correct?

2.) for the test what video streams were you watching?

2.) Are you planning on testing this for the preseason games and if so can you provide an update on that experience?

3.) Also, your cyber ghost link shows it works for 1 device, so I'm assuming this means you could sign up for gamepass and just stream it on an ipad right?