Perhaps MLB blackouts will be a thing of the past in the years to come. This year MLLB.tv plans to offer a “Follow Your Team” add-on to help you watch your favorite team. However, you will need to authenticate through your cable or satellite provider. That’s a problem for cord cutters everywhere. It doesn’t seem at all fair considering that MLB.tv is a premium streaming service. Those who subscribe should be able to watch every game, regardless of the location. That isn’t the case though as viewers in the United States and Canada are impacted by blackout rules. You can solve the problem by using a VPN.
What are the Major League Baseball blackouts all about? Here’s an explanation from the MLB.tv website:
Regular Season Local Live Blackout in the U.S. and Canada: All live games streamed on MLB.TV and available through MLB.com At Bat are subject to local, regional or national blackouts. Except for certain MLB regular season and Postseason games as described below or in certain MLB Club home television territories for which MLBAM may offer in-market subscription Services, all live games will be blacked out in each applicable Club’s home television territory. If a game is blacked out in an area, it is not available for live game viewing. If you are an MLB.TV subscriber within an area subject to blackout, the applicable game will be available as an archived game approximately 90 minutes after the conclusion of the game.
As you can see baseball fans in the US and Canada are subject to local, regional, and national blackouts. That means you can’t always rely on MLB.com At Bat to watch your favorite team play live. Blackout games are available an hour and a half after the game ends. That’s very anti-climatic. Most Fans want to watch the games live, not on-demand after the fact. By then you’ve likely seen the outcome. The answer to the problem is a VPN. Connecting to a VPN server in another country will get around the blackouts. Avoid all the blackouts by using a VPN service.
The key to getting around the blackout restrictions is connecting to a VPN server outside the United States and Canada. MLB At Bat and other streaming services use a technology called geo-blocking to determine whether or not you can access their content. In the case of blackouts the app is looking for the location of your IP address. If it falls in the US or Canada the blackout rules will apply. If you connect to a VPN server in another country it will change your IP address location. That will let you watch any MLB game without blackout.
Best VPN to Stream MLB Blackout Games
First you will want to find a reliable and solid VPN service. In this case you will want one with fast VPN servers in whichever region you plan to watch coverage in, again we recommend the UK. Since you want a fast, reliable service to choose from we’ll share some leading VPN providers with large networks. We would like to thank all three VPN services for offering our visitors a deep discount. Save up to 60% off unlimited VPN to unblock blackouts and protect your privacy.
Rank
Provider
Price
Rating
Visit
1
$4.87
60% Off
9.9
Read Review
2
$6.25
37% Off
9.8
Read Review
3
$8.32
35% Off
9.7
Read Review
How to Use a VPN to Watch MLB At Bat
I’ll use IPVanish for the example of how to use a VPN service to watch MLB games. First you’ll want to download the VPN client. IPVanish offers free client software for Windows, Mac and Linux. In addition, they also have free apps for iOS and Android.
Now that you’ve had a chance to download and install the software, let us begin. Launch the IPVanish client and select a server location. We’ll show you how easy it is to use a VPN by using the Windows Client as an example.
Select a server location. For MLB blackout games you will want to pick a server outside the US and Canada.
We recommend you select OpenVPN (TCP) or (UDP). For streaming the games, we would use OpenVPN (UDP). That is because UDP is the fastest. If you have connection problems, you could switch to OpenVPN (TCP). They also support PPTP and L2TP, but we still recommend OpenVPN for the best privacy protection.
Click connect. After a few seconds you’ll see the button at the top change to green and show “Disconnect”. You’ll also notice the server location and IP address show up at the top of the client.
We’re now located in the UK as far as anyone can tell online. As such, we can reach any site as if sitting in London. The same would be true if we connected to a server in the US or anywhere else in the world.
Connecting to a VPN is as simple as that. Now that you have an IP address from the IPVanish server in the United Kingdom, you can browse the Internet as if you were actually there. The same is true from any country. Connect to a server in the United Kingdom to watch BBC Sports for English coverage, or any other channel you want to choose.
Hopefully by now, you can see that a good VPN opens access to content around the world. If you live outside the United States, the service can help you access popular services like Netflix, Hulu and Pandora. Of course, you would still need an account for services like Netflix, but the VPN will help you watch US programming. You could enjoy TV shows and movies on Netflix as if you were sitting in the United States. That is also the case with any other region you would like to access.
Enjoy all the excitement during the Major League Baseball season. Please follow us @VPNFan for the latest deals and guides and share this post with your friends. They too can enjoy the MLB season from anywhere in the world with a VPN.
The post Avoid MLB.tv Blackouts with a VPN appeared first on VPN Fan.