As a fan of the NFL, I know how hard it can be to get games without having to pay out tons for cable TV.
Sure there are NFL streams online but a lot of NFL streaming you find on sites like Reddit is kind of in the gray area and aren’t totally legal.
And while you can get NFL games with DIRECTV, it’s certainly not cheap.
The cheapest package you can get with NFL games included costs you $45 a month, plus up to $8.49 a month in taxes and fees.
Aside from that, you’ll have to get a 24 month agreement. This means that you pay $1,080 over two years. The season is just four months out of the year. So you end up paying more than $1,000 for just 8 months if NFL games are all you’re looking for (when you look at it that way, it works out at about $135 a month!).
Not all of us can afford to have cable in our budget.
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That’s why, according to Forbes, cord cutting doubled in 2018.
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How to Watch NFL Games Without Cable
So, what can you do if you don’t want to pay for football games through the usual DIRECTV route?
Fortunately, there are plenty of alternatives.
In this post, we’ll let you know how to watch NFL online and on your TV for free.
1. Sign up for Amazon Prime
Prime is a great service that has saved me so much money, and Amazon is always making it better.
Now, it even offers NFL games at no additional cost!
Really!
Prime members can get Thursday Night Football games for free.
Prime costs $12.99 a year, or $199 annually.
You get free shipping on all orders that contain Prime eligible items. This means that you could spend $5 or $500, and, as long as the order contains Prime eligible items, you’d still get free shipping!
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Also, you get access to movies, TV shows, and documentaries with Amazon’s streaming service, Prime Video.
You get tons of other benefits as well.
What’s great about Prime though is that you can get it for free for 30 days.
So that’s a whole month of free football games!
- You can sign up to Amazon Prime here.
2. Subscribe to YouTube TV
YouTube TV gives you live sports, including NFL games.
You also get TV shows and news from more than 70 channels.
And, free unlimited DVR storage space also comes with your YouTube TV subscription.
While normally it costs $49.99 a month, YouTube TV offers a free trial.
YouTube’s free trial changes quite often. It’s been as short as 5 days and as long as 30 days. More recently, 7 days has been quite common.
- You can sign up for YouTube TV here.
3. Get Hulu + Live TV
You can stream NFL games, and other sports games with Hulu + Live TV. And, you can stream content at home or on the go.
Also, you’ll get access to Hulu’s streaming library, which includes TV shows in a variety of categories.
Hulu + Live TV usually costs $44.99 a month.
But you can get Hulu for free for 7 days with their seven-day trial. So you can test it out for a week, and get NFL games for free.
- You can sign up for Hulu + Live TV here.
4. Get NFL Game Pass
For anyone looking to avoid getting cable just for the NFL games, NFL Game Pass is a great choice.
It gives you access to live preseason games, and you can replay all 256 regular season games. You can listen to live game-day radio broadcasts as well.
Usually costing $99.99 for the season (or you can pay in four installments, which costs $29.99 for each installment), which is way cheaper than cable overall anyway, NFL Game Pass offers a free trial.
It’s a seven day trial, so you can give the service a try, and get games for free for a week!
- Sign up for NFL Game Pass here.
5. Sign up for Sling TV
With the Sling Blue + Sports Extra package, you can watch football live.
You get games broadcast on NBC select markets, the NFL Network, and additional coverage on the NFL RedZone.
Also, you can get other channels, so it’s a good TV package all-round.
It costs $30 a month, but there’s a free week’s trial.
- You can sign up for Sling Blue here.
6. Sign up for PlayStation Vue Core + Sports
With the PlayStation Vue Core + Sports pack, you can get live stream HD channels, get thousands of on demand shows, and get live sports, including NFL games!
You can get NFL RedZone from the NFL Network, and sports channels, such as Longhorn Network and NBC sports.
While normally pretty pricey at $64.99 a month, PlayStation Vue offers a free 5-day trial.
- You can sign up for PlayStation Vue here.
Long-term Ways to Get NFL Games for Free
We’re going to level with you here, most of the ways to get the NFL for free only work short term. What if you always want to get NFL games for free?
Let’s take a look at some long-term solutions for getting games at no cost.
7. Get a TV Antenna
As many games are televised for free on networks like NBC, CBS and Fox, all you need to do is get yourself an antenna.
You can easily find one for less than $30.
Plus, you can even get HDTV antennas now!
If you’ve wanted to know how to watch NFL games without cable, getting an antenna really is a great choice.
You don’t need an expensive cable package. It’s just that one-off payment for the antenna, and then you can watch NFL games for free.
8. Free Trial Hack
All of the places above offered a free trial. Some trials were as little as 5 days, and some were as much as 30 days, in Amazon’s case, with the average trial being a week.
Since NFL Game Pass, Sling TV, Hulu, and YouTube TV all offer a one week trial, if you sign up to one service for a week, cancel it before the trial period ends, and then do the same with the next service, you could get NFL games for free for four weeks.
Then, PlayStation Vue gives you a free 5 day trial, and you can get a free 30-day trial of Amazon.
So, sign up for those as well.
After each trial ends, just sign up for another one, and so on, and you’ll get NFL games for free for two months in total.
9. Sign up for Survey Sites
If you have some downtime, whether it’s when you’re waiting at the doctor’s office, or on your lunch break, consider doing surveys.
Companies need feedback from consumers and are willing to pay for it.
You can use the cash you get from surveys to cover the cost of a subscription service, like Amazon, and get NFL games for free.
And, you can do these surveys online.
Here are a few survey sites you can join:
- Toluna
- Vindale Research
- iPoll
- MySurvey
- Pinecone Research
- QuickThoughts
- SurveySavvy
- Darwin’s Data
- Google Opinion Rewards
- Ipsos i-Say
- Survey Junkie
- Qmee
10. Join Rewards Websites
On these sites, you can make extra cash doing really easy things that you like already do online, like:
- Playing games.
- Browsing the internet.
- Subscribing to free services.
- Watching videos.
- Answering polls.
- Shopping.
Here are some rewards websites to check out:
- Swagbucks
- TreasureTrooper
- Perk
- InboxDollars
- SquishyCash
- MyPoints
- InstaGC
- QuickRewards
- EarnHoney
- Gift Hunter Club
For doing these tasks, you’ll get points that you can redeem for money or gift cards, or money from the outset.
You can use this cash to cover the cost of the service you’re using to get NFL games, whether that’s NFL Game Pass or Hulu, and you’ll get the games for free!
11. Bonus Tip: Look for Deals
If you do want to go the usual cable route, then make sure you look at deals websites like these.
Deals websites, like RetailMeNot, have coupons and deals for AT&T (the company who owns DIRECTV) and DIRECTV.
This could save you a lot of money.
Here are some great websites for finding DIRECTV/AT&T deals:
Closing Thoughts
There are lots of ways to get NFL Games for Free (whether it’s Monday Night or Sunday Night Football!), both for a short period of time and in the long-term.
Give our tips a try, and let us know in the comments section below if you have any tips on how to watch NFL games for free.
Swaggest Creeper
You can download the nfl fantasy app on your phone and watch most(if not all) nfl games on your mobile device.