Can I Watch the NFL Live on the Internet?

Watching a live NFL game on your computer can be accomplished in a variety of fashions. Although the Internet is full of websites that offer "live streaming videos" of live sporting events, including NFL games, most times those videos are of very poor quality as they're fed through a web cam pointed at somebody's television as the live event unfolds. There are better ways to watch live NFL games than taking that route.

  1. Subscribe to DirecTV

    • A subscriber to DirecTV has the ability to order the NFL Sunday Ticket, which offers all out-of-market regular season NFL games that otherwise would be unavailable in certain markets. The regular season games broadcast by your local network affiliates will not be available on the NFL Sunday Ticket package, but will be available on the local Fox and CBS channels provided by DirecTV. Once you have the NFL Sunday Ticket, however, you also have access to all of the Sunday afternoon games--including those on your local Fox and CBS channels--on the Internet. To access these games, you must create an online account with DirecTV. Once you have established your account, the DirecTV website will direct those interested in watching live NFL games to download an Adobe program called Supercast. When that process is complete, you will have the ability to watch all Sunday afternoon NFL games on your computer.

    Watch 'Sunday Night Football' on NBC and NFL Network

    • Regular season NFL games that appear on NBC's "Sunday Night Football" program are also available online. To access these live games, type in http://nbcsports.msnbc.com in your browser window and you will be directed to NBC's live Internet feed of the game. Live Thursday night games broadcast by the NFL Network during the regular season are also available online. Visit the NFL's website, http://www.nfl.com, to access live Thursday night games during the regular season. Access is available directly before the start of the games and during the games.

    Playoffs, Super Bowl and ESPN

    • ESPN does not offer live streaming feeds online of its NFL offering, "Monday Night Football." However, there are numerous websites that can be found in search engines that claim to offer live streaming feeds of the games. The same can be said of NFL playoff games and the Super Bowl, which are not broadcast on the Internet officially by the NFL or any of the major networks that broadcast NFL games. The sites that broadcast ESPN and playoff games accomplish this many times by somebody pointing a web cam at a personal television set and then streaming it live on his website. The quality, unlike what is offered online by DirecTV and NBC during the regular season, is poor. Watching NFL games on fly-by-night websites is therefore not recommended. Monday night NFL games, as well as playoff games and Super Bowl games, are readily available on local radio stations, mostly AM stations. If you don't have access to a television during a live NFL playoff game or Monday night game, a radio may be your best option.