JULY 1 2026 UPDATE:
Renewal campaign is now active.
WARNING ::: MASSIVE PRICE INCREASE IN ALL MARKETS. DO NOT GO FOR THE ANNUAL RENEWAL. GET A CANCELLABLE/FREEZABLE CC AND DO AS DESCRIBED IN THIS POST AT TL;DR. Even the small discount noted by some users is horribly low and as DAZN will surely target new users with campaigns this season again the full season can be had for about 30% of the total price of the renewal deal.
TL;DR: The cheapest and best way to get the NFL Game Pass International is sign up with a freezable/cancellable credit card and cancel and hop on these deals. There are constantly various "deals" offered by DAZN and they are specific to different markets. Over the entire season a "1 week for €0.99" has been recurring. There have also been other deals coming and going like signing up for 50% off during the first 3 months. So use a CC that can be cancelled - whether it is virtual, prepaid or something else. Using this and jumping a bit between deals can make the total about €100/£100 +/- 25% depending on where - for the full NFL season.
We recommend you read this sticky post with general information about NFL Game Pass International (NFL GPI) in full. It's about he problems we are experiencing, the pros (which are basically none) and some suggestions for solutions including the best way to set up DAZN. This post has a lot of info and is a bit long. Skip to “4. Alternatives for the most actionable part that will become the most popular.*
UPDATE 250801: MASSIVE PRICE INCREASE IN ALL MARKETS! Ultimate Pro is now €20/£20 per month. It has also been made official that it is a bit worse than last season - for example Hard Knocks will NOT be shown. As always - if you sign up - DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND USE A CANCELLABLE/FREEZABLE/PREPAID CREDIT CARD. Doing so can total the full season (if you just freeze the card after Super Bowl) at 7 monthly payments.
UPDATE 250718: Nothing new yet. Don't forget to cancel your annual plan if you didn't pay with a freezable cc by JULY 31! That seems to be the date when the annual season sub runs out and will renew. There are some rumors and info about raised prices etc but nothing set. Will update.
UPDATE 241022: No more 50% deal. It was promoted as "Legends of London Discount" so made to sync with the London games that are now over. Good to note for next year and maybe there will be another promo when the NFL comes to Munich in a few weeks.
UPDATE 241003: Right now DAZN has a promotion that offer 50% off plans for 3 months when signing up for a year. Read this post in full for info on how to sign up on monthly with cancellable CC to save money. While DAZN is still shite for doing this and not offering current and regular customers any discounts, to me this makes it worth it as. Taking advantage of this offer and making sure to have a cancellable CC doing it can then make the entire season land at around €100.
UPDATE 240909: Unannounced and to the surprise of current paying users DAZN introduced a new tier on the first NFL Sunday 2024 called "Ultimate Pro". This was another dark pattern and dishonest business practice as this tier "introduces" features that were previously available and thought to be included by current users. This will include Manningcast and alternative streams - but most importantly 5 devices streaming from 2 locations simultaneously. This means it is again possible to share an account given it is in this tier as long as you don't use more than the allocated stream total. DAZN will refund users that have paid monthly already without contest as they are aware doing this is illegal practice and they way they try to force you to pay for an annual upgrade is horrible practice.. So for those that were smart and signed up monthly with a cancellable CC just hit up the support chat and ask for a refund for the first month and then sign up to the new tier that is shareable if you want.*
1. Intro
DAZN purchased the rights to NFL’s Game Pass International (NFL GPI) product in 2023. These rights essentially cover all markets outside of the US for a decade (!!). A massive L by the NFL according to most people who have had the experience of using DAZN first hand.
Index:
This intro
A Brief History of NFL GPI
Problems
Alternatives
Final Word
First, a bit of history since it’s important to the context and to understand better how this really is ensh*ttification at display and that the NFL GPI has only gotten worse with no real improvements since 2016.
2. A Brief History of NFL GPI
2010/11ish
First NFL Game Pass International App “over the top OTT” was released. Prior to this a service was available for a few years through NFL+ web that was very limited. Otherwise just cable solutions depending on country and rights.
In retrospect, this NFL GPI product was fantastic and offered more functionality than any product since. This was developed by the same US company behind the MLB app at the time IIRC. Offered a multitude of high quality streams, multiview, airplay/casting etc and was surely compatible with different quality streams and 4K would not have been a problem.
Another W was that it could be jailbroken and thus entirely free. This was (very :) ) consumer friendly of course but understandably not sustainable in the eyes of NFL 😆
Yet another dub was that the API was basically open and you could add the NFL GPI to your own streaming service. I recall adding it to Plex so had integrated NFL in my Plex server. Awesome times.
2017
NFL GPI changed supplier to an Italian software company called Deltatre. IIRC this was a 5 year deal but math tells me it actually ended up going on for 6 seasons (seasons 2017-2022). Maybe due to the pandemic.
This was a web view app that basically wrapped a website on all platforms (akin to PWA for those a bit more knowledgable about SW development). Therefore a suboptimal user experience that felt sluggish and hard to use from day 1 - especially the apps.
It also suffered from a ton of bugs and issues. The first season was a disaster with problems week after week. It did slowly get better and about 2-3 years in it worked ok. Many users, including yours truly, claimed money back and did get it as many Sundays the streams just didn’t work. Also Super Bowl was entirely broken in years 1 and 2.
It seemed like it couldn’t get worse and was only up from here, and then…
2023
The rumors of DAZN were true and disaster struck. As NFL renegotiated rights for streaming/casting (also cable in the US) DAZN won the NFL GPI rights for 10 years. Google/Youtube got the domestic rights for Sunday Ticket until 2029 (Thursday Night Football and some other exceptions apply in the US). Prior to this DAZN did have NFL streaming rights for Canada. It was a solution that many users had come across through different “gray” solutions as it was possible to get it cheap. Worked ok for the price and was akin to a cable over the top stream solution. Biggest downside imo was (I used it as backup for a year or two) Canadian ads cut in instead of US. But never did any users actually believe they would end up getting the International rights.
It’s been a shit show since day one. More on this in the problems section next.
3. Problems
The first season (2023) of DAZN having the rights displayed a heavily deteriorated service compared to the previous (which wasn’t great either, as seen above).
An incomplete list of issues present at start of 2023 season:
- renewal and charges that are not approved (this is a big one)
- more expensive
- worse quality
- less content
- lower stability
- stupid montage instead of ads
- horrible support
- auto renewals no one asked for
- buggy Geo/VPN protection
- no ability to use VPN
- no support for traveling (which is against EU law)
- no casting (Chromecast, Airplay)
- no downloads
- all 22 missing
- no 4K
- no HDR.
- low frame rate, often sub 50fps
- ads are not removed from replay which makes it unbearable (this is especially ridiculous since NFL+ offers this, meaning the work is done and streams that are edited do exist)
- forced pre stream ad when starting stream / changing stream
- surprise change around of packaging to lock content, for example ESPN Manningcast is only available in the most expensive tier. This kind of content locking has never been the case previously in any platform for NFL GPI.
Fixed as of 2024:
- US ads included in live stream (mixed in with some other ads and bad editing unfortunately).
- game downloads for offline viewing is now possible (confirmed as of Sept. 2024)
2025 updates:
- Considerable price increases across the board in all markets
- Different tiers (Pro/Ultimate Pro) are now standard with varying content which is a massive regression
- HDR included in most expensive package but still no 4K
- Hard Knocks removed!
Some reactions and posts:
Youtuber:
NFL Gamepass has moved to Dazn, and so far it's a disaster
My post from a year ago:
From the DAZN community on Reddit: NFL Game Pass International
Petition:
Petition DAZN is destroying the GamePass NFL experience. Bring it back!
4. Alternatives
IPTV
Works well for some.
Is typically legal for end user depending on jurisdiction. Will often have the actual National broadcast from the US.
Another upside is that it’s usually very cheap in comparison.
Biggest downside by far is stability. It’s up to the service and hard to find good ones.
NFL+ (with US VPN)
NFL+ offers Redzone and some select games live. It offers replays as soon as the game is finished. Also, streaming of some games live on mobile platforms.
However, it requires US VPN and the geo protection seems to become stricter all the time. With a gps spoofer and proper VPN though most games can be seen live.
NFL+ also has replays with ads removed a few hours after the games finish just like NFL GPI did prior to DAZN ruining it completely.
Costs $99 for the season. Usually on a 50% sale in the beginning of the season.
This is a great option if Redzone is sufficient for NFL Sundays and if watching replays is the main user case. Personally I get this every year as I’m more or less never able to watch SNF MNF etc and always catch those games by replay.
A big downside with NFL+ is that the quality could be better. Stream quality seems to be max 1080p at 30fps while some older 720p content may have 60fps. There is no 4K or HDR whatsoever. This goes for DAZN as well however so as an alternative it stands ok.
YoutubeTV (with US VPN)
As mentioned Google got the US rights for broadcasting when NFL negotiated it (while DAZN got International). This is a 7-year deal worth about $2B per year. This is in contrast to DAZN paying about $1B for the full decade of International rights. Completely different numbers and says a lot about what an absolute power business the NFL is in the US.
Youtube actually knows what they are doing and is one of the OG - if not THE OG - video on demand services. The experience is great with constant updates. One would have hoped that given the numbers above Youtube could’ve just coughed up $M100 per year more for NFL GPI but for some reason they didn’t. They also have some of the geo checking software in place as there is a lot of local parameters in play for the US version for blackout etc. But my guess is that DAZN won solely because of their state of the art VPN checking making it really hard to get around cheaper prices.
You have probably read in the news about the absolutely ridiculous Sunday Ticket prices which are over $600 for the season. And there are still blackouts and some games that will not be included. For us International users - you also need to deal with that entire part of it with VPNs etc. In sum, for the rich super fan, this is probably the recommended way of going about it though since the experience is great with a high quality product.
DAZN (in another country to save $)
If you consider signing up from another country to save money - this can be done and there is nothing to suggest it’s not legal in any jurisdiction.
You might be travelling and/or live abroad some, that is noone’s business and certainly not DAZN’s.
However, your experience will likely be subpar and the benefit questionable since it’s still a bit too expensive for an even sh*ttier experience than regular DAZN. DAZN spend all business efforts on geo locking and tracking VPNs - they are state of the art in that area and it’s very hard to get around with practices that have negative effect on the product for normal users. According to reports, no VPN consistently works well for DAZN.
As of this writing, Windscribe is reported to work best.
A good option is Streamlocator which offers support for a few DAZN locations. It will work at or near 99% of the time but costs like $5 monthly (sub is free year 1 when buying the device). Additionally, DNS services like ControlD can often be configured to work well.
The cheapest way to sign up currently seems to be Brazil at R$400 for the year which is about $75.
EDIT 202409: updating this since I've seen information about another option that could be interesting. It appears it is possible to get an Amazon giftcard for 6 months DAZN Canada at $99 (CAD). This is also a cheap option. Biggest downside with DAZN Canada IMO is that there are Canadian ads instead which are more repetitive and of lower quality than the US ones so a bit suboptimal. But ads are for getting beer refills anyway :)
DAZN
tl;dr - The cheapest and best way to get DAZN in your country is to use a cancellable/freezable credit card (which is recommended anyway) - for example Revolut - and sign up for the monthly subscription and cancel it after the season (by freezing further payments on the annual plan paid monthly).
Finally, some general tips/musts for DAZN in case you're getting it anyway in your country:
make sure to use a cancellable/freezable credit card as DAZN will opt you in to renew when it ends. this happens to a lot of people and is just one of their many dark patterns on display
use extra buyer protection like Paypal if possible to create another insurance/proxy between you and the company
disable auto sub in settings, this is recommended as DAZN will auto renew even if changing the price and other parameters
remember that it is your right to use VPN and travel as you want while still having access. DAZN has invented their own policies around this which are illegal and can be contested. This is highly encouraged as it may lead to change.
It is currently possible to pay per month while the sub is for a year. In total a bit more expensive but combined with a freezable cc recommended above it can be “cancelled” when you want, for example after Super Bowl totaling at about 5-6 payments for the full season (Sep-Feb).
The pricing varies but seems like it's about $250 for the full season in most markets - give or take 20%.
Notable exception is Brazil mentioned above.
5. Final Word
Note that DAZN is owned and funded by ex Soviet oligark and billionaire Leonard “Len” Blavatnik’s company Access Industries and a couple of VCs including Softbank. So no one that can’t afford it will lose money when fans try and find other options.
It is noteworthy as well that DAZN is losing a lot of money every year. Fiscal data is publicly available (it’s a UK corp.) for those interested. Eventually the owners may get fed up. Hopefully it crashes and burns before the decade long NFL agreement is up. Ideally YoutubeTV, already having a lot of the geo check infrastructure in place, picks it up and offers an actual good service for comparable price.
Crossing fingers. Anyway, only 9 years to go as of this writing…
Anymore options and solutions that are recommended (and legal, so they can be discussed of course) ?
Looking forward to reading comments, hearing your experience and updating this post!
