The long wait is finally over. After navigating six months of life without football, the NFL is back on your television sets for the 2019 preseason.
So maybe the games do not officially count yet, but the sounds of quarterback cadences and pads crashing into one another return in the form of 65 preseason games for fans to generate hope that a 2019 will finally be the year their team wins the Super Bowl.
Each franchise plays four preseason games over the course of August – with the exception of Denver and Atlanta, which played a fifth game in the Hall of Fame Game . While the game’s biggest stars play just a few series or may not see any time on the field at all, the preseason serves as a meaningful stage for fringe players looking to make the final 53-man roster or practice squad.
The 2019 season may also be the final time that fans will have the opportunity to watch teams play four preseason games, as rumors have swirled regarding a reduced preseason schedule in favor of more regular-season games following the CBA’s expiration after the 2020 season.
Fortunately for fans, every preseason game is televised in some fashion. Below is a guide to the various ways you can watch live and on-demand NFL games this preseason.
How to live stream NFL preseason games
No professional sports league generates television ratings and viewership quite like the NFL. Network and broadcast companies shell out rights fees in the 10s of billions of dollars to have a stake in such a profitable brand. Due to the high fees, the NFL can be pretty restrictive on finding alternate methods of watching games. It is a little more accessible when it comes to watching the preseason, however.
While fans are typically limited to just one channel for regular season and playoff games, there are a few different ways to watch or stream NFL games before the regular season kicks off on Sept. 5.
National broadcasts
Every week a few select preseason games will be shown on national TV on Fox, NBC, CBS or ESPN. These games will require a cable subscription in order to watch. Fox also streams its games on the Fox Sports Go app and website with proper TV provider credentials, as does NBC on its NBC Sports app and website and ESPN on its app and website. CBS streams its games on the premium CBS All Access website and app, which comes with a monthly subscription.
The NFL Network will show 13 live preseason games (subject to local blackout restrictions), as well as re-air all 65 games at some point before the regular season. Outside of the national broadcasts, each team’s local market will have coverage of every game.
The station listings for every preseason game are provided in the schedule tables below.
NFL Game Pass
NFL Game Pass – available for $99.99 – provides live access to every preseason game, as well as replays of every game in a condensed 45-minute version. This service doesn’t continue live coverage during the regular season, but full game replays are available as soon as every game ends.
NFL Game Pass also includes access to the NFL Films archives and live radio broadcasts of each game. It can be streamed on pretty much any mobile device, computer or Smart TV.
livestream-onlinetv.com
livestream-onlinetv refer users an online channel where users see every single game at no cost.
fuboTV, ESPN, Or Other
Every nfl game on the national broadcasts – with the exception of ESPN, WKBW, WXIN, WNBC, KING, KTVD etc – or live on NFL Network can also be streamed on fuboTV, which offers a free 7-day trial to new subscribers.
A subscription with fuboTV also provides a viewer to all of the NFL Network’s original programming such as Total Access, NFL GameDay and Good Morning Football.
NFL live streams on Reddit
While technically illegal and generally frowned upon as a method to escape paying for a cable subscription or premium service, Reddit streams exist and are a very popular way to watch NFL games online. The subreddit, /r/NFLStreams, exists where users share streams of every single game at no cost.
In June, however, Reddit banned a similar NBA subreddit with over 400,000 subscribers due to copyright infringement rules. The website also recently banned the /r/mmastreams and /r/soccerstreams, so it will be interesting to see what happens to the NFL channel this season.
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