Major League Baseball broadcasts have long been exclusive to TV and radio stations in the United States. But as more and more people start cutting the cord, demand for watching baseball online without a cable or satellite subscription grows. In this article, we’ll show you how to live stream baseball online from anywhere – without a cable subscription – with the help of a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

How to avoid MLB blackouts with a VPN

All of these cord-cutting solutions are still subject to blackout restrictions. Because local broadcasters on cable and satellite still get first dibs on content licenses, no one else is allowed to show live games in their coverage area.

In most cases,blackout restrictions can be bypassed by using a VPN. By encrypting your device’s internet connection and routing it through a remote server, you can make it appear as though you’re accessing the stream from back home outside the blackout region.

Our top recommended VPN for streaming MLB is NordVPN, which has all the servers, bandwidth, live customer support, and strong security you need, packed into a simple and intuitive app.

Here’s how to stream the MLB 2023 season online from anywhere:

  • Sign up with a reputable VPN provider. As you can see, we recommend NordVPN.
  • Download and install the app that’s compatible with your streaming device and go through the short setup process.
  • Connect to a server in the US outside of the blackout region, this will give you the IP address you need to bypass the restrictions.
  • Go to the streaming platform in question. Content should now play without restriction.
  • Still doesn’t work? You may want to try clearing your browser’s cookies. It may be that your current IP address is blacklisted, in which case you should try connecting to a different server.

How to watch baseball with MLB.tv

The simplest way to watch baseball games online is to buy a subscription to MLB.tv, the league’s official streaming service. At the time of writing (just before the 2023 MLB season begins), prices are as follows:

There are no hidden terms—just contact support within 30 days if you decide NordVPN isn’t right for you, and you’ll get a full refund. Start your NordVPN trial here.

  • Watch all teams and out-of-market games. Yearly: $129.99
  • Watch all teams and out-of-market games. Monthly: $24.99
  • Watch your favorite team and out-of-market games. Yearly: $109.99

The benefits of this are clear, the picture quality is excellent, you can view multiple games at once, and subscribers can even DVR the games on supported devices. MLB.tv subscriptions also include live streams of playoff and World Series games.

MLB.tv says subscribers can “watch every out-of-market game regular season game live or on-demand on over 400 supported devices.” Additionally, subscribers can watch a full archive of old games, track their fantasy league players, use a widget to track pitch stats, listen to just the audio broadcast, and watch highlights and stat updates as they are updated in real-time.

But MLB.tv has a few restrictions, the most glaring of which are regional blackouts.  This stipulation often prevents fans on MLB.tv from watching the games they want to see the most–their hometown teams–until 90 minutes after the game has concluded. The live audio, however, is never blacked out.

You can easily bypass blackouts on MLB.tv with a VPN on a desktop web browser like Chrome or Firefox and watch games from abroad. Unblocking the official MLB mobile app, however, is not so easy.

The official MLB app (formerly called MLB At Bat) is the league’s official mobile app for Android and iOS. MLB.tv subscribers can live stream games right on their mobile devices for $19.99 (yearly) or $2.99 (monthly).

However, you cannot bypass regional blackouts on the MLB app, even with a VPN. This is because the app uses your phone’s GPS—not its IP address—to verify your location. The GPS must be turned on to stream video, and it will detect whether or not you’re using a GPS location spoofing app. Nothing short of rooting or jailbreaking your device will be enough to bypass the location checks.

Other ways to watch MLB without a cable subscription

Fubo TV

Fubo TV includes FS1 and some local Fox channels in its basic and Extra packages. MLB Network and TBS are not included, though, which means no NL Division Series or AL Division Series games. A 7-day free trial is available. After that, the basic plan is $69.99 per month.

Fubo TV is available in several countries, but you’ll need the US package to get the channels required to stream MLB games live online. That means a VPN will be necessary if you’re outside of the United States.

Sling TV

Sling TV, a sort of cable service through the internet, a little while back obtained the rights to live stream games on TBS, ESPN, Fox Sports 1, and regional Fox Sports networks. If your team broadcasts games on those networks, this solution can work for you. They include Diamondbacks, Reds, Braves, Tigers, Marlins, Rays, Royals, Cardinals, Rangers, Twins, Indians, Padres, Angels, Brewers, and Yankees. However, there’s no free trial — instead, you’ll need to purchase a Sling Blue or Sling Orange plan, which cost $35 a month and includes a slew of other channels.

You can view in a web browser or on an app for iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, smart TV, etc. However, Sling TV is only available in the United States. SO, if you’re not in the country or the game you want to watch is blacked out, you’ll need a VPN to watch it.

Youtube TV

Youtube TV is a live-streaming cord-cutting service that costs $64.99 per month (currently $54.99 per month for the first three months) and comes with a 14-day free trial. You get a wide range of channels with sports content, including Fox Sports, FS1, FS2, ESPN, MLB Network, NBC, and TBS. Youtube TV will even record games played by teams you’ve selected as your favorites—there are no storage limits. You can have up to six accounts per household.

Youtube TV is only available in the United States, but you can access it with a VPN if you’re abroad.

Hulu Live

Hulu + Live TV is another cord-cutting service with FS1, TBS, ESPN, and more. Unlike Youtube TV, there’s no option of a free trial, and it doesn’t come with MLB Network. However, your subscription also includes access to ESPN+ and Disney+ for $69.99 per month.

Hulu Live is only available in the US, so travelers abroad will have to use a VPN that works with Hulu to access it.

Unsanctioned live streams

Some people watch MLB.tv baseball games on third-party live-streaming websites. However, these often operate in a legal grey area, so we don’t encourage their use. Beware that many links purporting to lead to such streams are scams, plus the sites are often littered with advertisements, trackers, and links to malware. They are unreliable and could get cut off at any moment during the stream. And they are almost always lower quality than the official outlet.

In these situations, you can instead install the VPN on a compatible router or use a laptop to configure a virtual router (see instructions for Windows and Mac). You can then connect your streaming device to the VPN-protected wi-fi network.

This setup creates a wi-fi hotspot that routes all connected devices through the VPN. This allows you to bypass geographic restrictions on devices that don’t support VPN apps.

A small number of VPNs, including ExpressVPN, include a smart DNS proxy with their plans that can be configured independently of the VPN. Many devices that don’t support VPNs will still let you change your DNS settings, so this is a possible workaround for VPNs that support it.