can you stream barclays premier league football games in the united states for free?

Not legally for free. Your best bet is to gethttp://www.beta.foxsoccer.tv/page/Home/0,,13138,00.html. Also, many basic cable packages now carry both ESPN2 and the basic Fox Soccer Channel, between them you get on average something like 4 games per weekend and Champions League and Italian Serie A. I hate TV and paying for cable is painful for me, but having those two channels at home sure beats going out to a bar at 8 am. Hope this helps.

At least one match already this season was streamable for free on ESPN3.com. And tomorrow's http://espn.go.com/espn3/index/_/sport/soccer-futbol match will be. Check that link for other matches coming up from other leagues. The stream quality can be very good.

http://www.myp2p.eu/competition.php?competitionid=&part=sports&discipline=football is a pretty good resource for finding streams you can watch with http://www.sopcast.com/download/ (I use the linux client with is basic but works well, the Windows client looks a lot better). There are other programs that do similar Peer-to-Peer streaming but I happen to have had success with Sopcast. They're all a bit flaky. Find the game you want and then click on the little "TV" icon for a list of streams. Some of the options will actually be flash players, so you may be able to watch a game without installing potential crapware. And yes, a lot of the programs and sites in this sphere are overflowing with crapware. The MyP2P.eu guides and forums are probably going to be very helpful to you. Using this combo I've been able to watch every EPL game I've wanted to see, as long as someone is broadcasting it somewhere. You may have to settle for Chinese language commentary on some games. The legality of all this is, of course, a judgement for you alone. MyP2P.eu have been to court at least once (they won) but I'm not aware of any viewers being pursued.

Streaming on ESPN3.com is only available to certain ISPs in the states, but if your ISP is in, it's a decent option. includes online streams in their schedule. Most are region restricted, and many require you to join a betting site, but it also gives you an idea of what to look for on atdhe.net.

I signed up for foxsoccer.tv last week to watch the Man U / Liverpool game and was really impressed with the quality of the stream. I find with football, I can't watch jerky streams without getting a huge headache. Of course, it's 15 bucks a month, but if there's at least one game every week you watch on it, I find the price worth the avoidance of hassle and headaches.

Tryhttp://atdhe.net/index.html. They compile free live sports streams from around the web, so they will do the work of sorting out what feeds are actually working, and if there is a choice making the most useful ones available.

Seconding Sopcast for the free option - the stream quality is usually head and shoulders above the other p2p or Flash-based free options, and myp2p.eu is the place to find the links on game day. For paid sites, I've had good luck with liveonlinefooty.com, which streams in Flash. Freelivefooty.com (funnily enough, decidedly not free) is another one that has been around a while, although I haven't tried it lately. If you don't really care which games you want to watch, Sopcast will have the "big" games that are aired on US TV most weeks. If you are following a more obscure team like, for instance, West Ham United (come on you Irons), then sometimes the paid sites come in handy.

I also recommend ATDHE.net, though today, for the first time, I can't watch from there. (Damn Liverpool game isn't being shown live in the UK, which significantly cuts down on the number of streams.) However, if it's not on there, a bit of creative Googling will usually bring up a reasonable replacement.

According to my SO, ATDHE > Sopcast.