How to Stream the Australian Football League from Anywhere

The 126th season of the Australian Football League, aka the AFL or the Aussie Rules, will kick off on March 2022. Footy fans have six full months of spectacular action as 18 teams compete for the champion’s title. The AFL Grand Final is scheduled for September 2022. If you haven’t set up your live stream yet, now is the right time to do so.

Where to stream Australian Rules Football online

In Australia, if you want to watch your favorite AFL teams play online, you are at the mercy of Seven Network, Fox Sports, and Fox Footy on Foxtel.

For online coverage, your best shot would be to stream via Telstra available on mobile, IPTV, and T-Box. Notably, all Telstra mobile customers can live stream the AFL games data-free.

Luckily, the AFL has several international broadcast partners, so many of you footy buffs can catch the live coverage of AFL outside of Australia.

In the UK

BT Sport and BT Sport/ESPN showcase five AFL games per week right through to the Toyota AFL Grand Final, and a weekly highlights program. The sports TV service is available in the UK and Ireland on Sky, Virgin TV Go, and BT TV, as well as via the BT Sports web portal and mobile app.

Of note is the recent expansion of the Virgin TV Go coverage – you can now watch its content anywhere in the European Union.

In the U.S.

​Fox Sports FS1 airs and streams the AFL games in the US, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean region.

Asia/Pacific

Australia Plus (subscription-based) is an online multi-platform media service available on mobile, via social media, and as an international television service. Australia Plus broadcasts in India, Singapore, China, Indonesia, and more – 39 countries in Asia and the Pacific region overall.

Australia Plus streams six AFL matches per week during the season, all games in the Finals, as well as a weekly highlights program.

Other regions

• TSN streams the AFL games in Canada
• Kwese in Afric
• Orbit Showtime in the Middle East and North Africa
• Sky Television and TVNZ in New Zealand
• Viasat in Russia and CIS countries

Internationally

Watch AFL Global is a subscription-based service offering live streams and on-demand videos of AFL games. It’s pretty expensive, however, at AUD 19/week, AUD 33/mo, and AUD 189/year.

Why use a VPN to live stream Aussie Rules Football

Aussie expats aren’t the only ones in need of a VPN to watch AFL. The thing is, blackouts occasionally leave Australia-based fans empty-handed when they expect to stream a game.

Blackouts and Firewalls

If you are a Foxtel Now or Foxtel app user, some matches will be blacked out. Various factors can cause a blackout, but as you would expect, it all goes down to broadcasting rights. When AFL games are blacked out on Fox Sports and Footy Play, they are available on Footy Play+.

Foxtel has a dedicated web page, where you can check for the AFL Blackouts schedule. But if you check the Foxtel community forum, you will find a lot of confusion surrounding the AFL blackouts. Games that are not scheduled for the blackout sometimes get blacked out without prior notice, so many subscribers aren’t happy at all.

Additionally, some schools and offices block sports streaming services on their premises. Clearly, your employer wants you to focus on work, not footy.

Geo-Blocks

If you are an AFL fan living, working, or vacationing outside of Australia, you could be facing the need to buy yet another sports streaming subscription in your current location. And if you have a valid premium subscription with one of the Australian providers, you are flat out denied your access to the AFL games from abroad. If that is the case, you end up paying twice – for your Australian streaming subscription (to which you have no access from abroad), and for your new subscription in your current location. Bummer.

Fortunately, all these streaming woes have a simple solution – a decent VPN.

A Virtual Private Network is an online service that allows you to emulate your location in the country of your choice. A VPN provider runs a network of servers across the world. When you connect to one of the VPN servers, it assigns you an IP address of its host country.

Let us suppose you need to unlock your Australian Fox Sports content. Connect to a VPN server in Australia and head over to your Fox Sports account. With an Australian IP address, your sports streaming provider identifies you as a regular Aussie connecting from the national territory. Your AFL matches are unlocked. Mission completed.

But that’s not the only VPN benefit worth mentioning. Since a VPN – a robust VPN – encrypts your traffic and keeps no logs of your browsing activity, you keep the details of your online life away from the potentially prying eyes. With a VPN, you can circumvent:

• Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) monitoring your online activity
• Your ISP throttling (speed capping when you stream or play online)
• Man-in-the-Middle and honeypot attacks on public WiFi networks
• School-, office-, state-imposed firewalls
• Internet censorship
• TV show streaming and gaming geo-blocks

How to stream the AFL Games with a VPN

Best VPNs for streaming Australian Rules Football live

You don’t have to be an Aussie to love Australian Rules Football. Besides providing spectacular entertainment, the AFL is the epitome of human athleticism at its absolute peak. It may be a far cry from anything you’ve seen before, but get hooked on it once, and you convert into an AFL enthusiast forever. And with a VPN, you can stream the AFL games all season long without issues.

NordVPN

• More US city locations than its rivals
• Includes malware protection
• No-logs policy

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PureVPN

• Excellent client with pre-configured modes for streaming, P2P, privacy
• Kill switch
• Support for wide range of protocols, including OpenVPN

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CyberGhost

• Precise locations
• Very large VPN server network
• Offers a 45-day money-back guarantee

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