Each country has its preferred sports and disciplines. Cricket is more than just a game in India and Pakistan, for example. Soccer is Italy, Brazil, Argentina, and Spain’s passion; and children in Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico grow up with a bat and a baseball in their hands.
In the case of the United States of America, which is a big and cosmopolitan country, we can name a few sports that have incredibly broad fan bases: baseball, hockey, and basketball have neatly organized professional leagues that are among the best of the planet. However, the true American spirit and passion for competition lives and dies with football.
Football, in the vast majority of countries and locations, is what the Americans know as soccer. However, the United States of America developed, many decades ago, their breed of ‘football;’ referred around the planet as American football.
The thing about football, which from this point on will be the term to refer the American variation in which an oval-shaped ball is thrown and kicked with various purposes (the primary one is reaching the end zone,) is that it is as American as a cheeseburger. Few other nations have tried to practice and embrace it, but none with the passion, dedication, and skill than our friends from the USA.
Getting to know the NFL
The National Football League, or NFL, is the professional circuit that organizes the sport in the country. It has 32 teams from several locations on the US map. The Pittsburgh Steelers, the Oakland Raiders, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Green Bay Packers are among the most widely known franchises, although all of them have considerable fan bases.
The NFL Draft is quite the event. It reunites two of America’s most fervent passions, professional and college football, in one weekend-long event. Teams use the Draft to select talent for their professional rosters for the upcoming season and beyond, and it involves time, effort, resources, money, and scouting to make successful use of your picks.
Several significant consortiums and chains have rights to broadcast the NFL Draft year in and year out. American viewers should have no issues tuning into their favorite sports channels and enjoying the event, but international audiences may have a harder time because some geo-blocking restrictions may apply for external connection requests.
The best way to make sure you don’t miss a pick of the draft if you live in a different country than the United States is hiring the services of a Virtual Private Network (VPN.) In this guide, you will learn everything about them and how to install and use them successfully.
The NFL Draft: selecting and nurturing talent!
The NFL Draft is the event in which the 32 teams replenish their rosters with college talent from all positions and backgrounds. It lasts seven rounds, in which each franchise picks one time per cycle. However, because of trades and compensatory picks, the number of selections that a club may have is not necessarily seven.
In fact, the team with the most selections in the 2018 draft is the Green Bay Packers with 12. The Detroit Lions, New York Giants, New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, and Tennessee Titans will each hold only six picks. The Cleveland Browns, last year’s worst team, will have the first pick, and after they traded for quarterback Tyrod Taylor, it is not a sure thing that they select a franchise signal caller.
The 2018 NFL Draft will be held at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and will be the 83rd annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) in which teams gather in one room to select newly eligible players. The event will start on April 26 with the first round, and the 27th will host the second and third “laps.” On April 28, franchises will continue with the remaining turns.
To be eligible for selection in the NFL draft, players need to be at least three years separated from their high school experiences. January 15 was the deadline for underclassmen to declare for the 2018 event.
The Philadelphia Eagles, this year’s Superbowl victors, will hold the 32nd selection, the last one of the first round. The Browns, a team in rebuilding mode, will have two picks in the initial turn and three in the second.
Will the New England Patriots select Tom Brady’s substitute for the future? Will the Browns take a QB with their first or second pick (fourth overall)? Will the Giants go for a signal caller to be Eli Manning’s heir apparent? All of those questions will be answered starting on April 26th!
Best prospects of the 2018 NFL Draft
- Josh Allen (QB) – Wyoming
- Sam Darnold (QB) – USC
- Baker Mayfield (QB) – Oklahoma
- Josh Rosen (QB) – UCLA
- Bradley Chubb (DE) – NC State
- Quenton Nelson (G) – Notre Dame
- Saquon Barkley (RB) – Penn State
- Roquan Smith (ILB) – Georgia
- Derwin James (S) – Florida State
- Vita Vea (DT) – Washington
- Minkah Fitzpatrick (DB) – Alabama
2018 NFL Draft media coverage
As it happens every year, the 2018 NL Draft will be televised for all fans spread around the country. NFL Media partners will provide the coverage, and among them are NFL Network and ESPN. Also, Fox will simulcast NFL Network’s signal in the first two days.
Also, ESPN will simulcast its coverage the last four rounds on ABC. ESPN2 and ESPNDeportes will also have scheduled draft programming on the first day. There is no shortage of options for Americans, but will people from abroad be able to enjoy the event?
If you are outside of the country and want to watch the Draft, you probably won’t be able to do so under normal conditions because of geographical reasons. ESPN, Fox, NFL Network, and every other signal broadcasting the draft will deny connection requests from abroad.
That happens because they need a US-based IP address to grant access to these American services. But how about if we tell you that you can obtain such thing while being outside of the US border?
VPN: the key open up new possibilities
Virtual Private Networks, or VPN, are online encryption tools and service that allow you to spoof your location no matter where you are. That way, you can obtain an IP address from a list of available countries depending on the brand you choose.
With a VPN, watching the 2018 NFL Draft live online will be possible. You need to select a brand with servers in the United States of America, connect to one of them, open the streaming site of ESPN or the NFL Network, and you are good to go.
VPN technology encrypts your data and sends it through a virtual tunnel to keep it safe from prying eyes on the web, such as hackers, government surveillance agencies, your Internet Service Provider, and others. They provide security and privacy, and they work with all kind of international streaming services and pages.
How to watch the 2018 NFL Draft live online from anywhere
- Choose a VPN with servers in the United States of America and with stable encryption protocols and measures, to avoid the ESPN or NFL Network streaming sites from seeing your real IP address (a non-American one.)
- Go to your chosen VPN website.
- Register for the service. You will need to provide personal information like name and email, and also a payment method.
- Download and install the VPN client or app on your phone or device.
- Sign in to your recently created account, entering the credentials and information provided in previous steps.
- Once logged in, connect to a US server.
- Access the streaming site you want to enter.
- Enjoy the 2018 NFL Draft!
Best VPN to watch the NFL Draft online live from anywhere
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| Multi-platform Compatible | ||
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| PRICE | $5 for 1 month with code "best10VPN" | $6.95 a month |
| Website Rating | 9.9 | 8.8 |
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| Residential / Dedicated IP for permanent streaming access | ||
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| Stealth VPN / Advanced Obfuscation techniques | ||
| Visit VPN Provider | Visit TorGuard | Visit PIA |
TorGuard
With incredible encryption quality, multiple servers in the United States, and top-notch speeds and performance, you have the right weapons to watch the 2018 NFL Draft with TorGuard. For just $9.99 per month, you will get the VPN service, although you have more anonymity and security options in the privacy bundle, anonymous email, and proxy. TorGuard lets you connect five simultaneous devices, and it has an excellent customer service with a live chat feature.
IPVanish
If you want a stable streaming signal with good speeds and no buffering, then IPVanish is the perfect choice for you. It is US-based so that you won’t have any issues watching the NFL Draft and all the analysis and commentary. With this client, you will have several configuration settings available, top encryption, all the major protocols, a kill switch, DNS leak protection and much more.
Private Internet Access
More than 3,000 servers are at your disposal with PIA, one of the best and cheaper VPN apps to watch the 2018 NFL Draft live online from anywhere. It costs just $6.95 per month, and it provides OpenVPN support, encrypted Wi-Fi, P2P activity, and five different connections at the same time.
GhostVPN
With robust AES 256-bit encryption and reliable privacy and security (including a strict no logging policy,) GhostVPN is rising in the VPN leaderboard when it comes to preferences. It has OpenVPN support as well as other protocols, it hosts 1,600 servers in 51 nations (including the United States,) and it has a 15-day money-back guarantee.
In conclusion, the NFL Draft is the most awaited event for football fans around the United States. As the sports is slowly, but surely, spreading around the world, and with so many Americans living abroad, there is a need for gaining access to the streaming sites that will broadcast the event.
If you encounter geo-blocking messages when trying to enter ESPN, or the NFL Network, from outside US territory, try one of the recommended VPN brands in this guide, and you will surely watch the 2018 NFL Draft Live Online, no matter where you are.
