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The Easy MLB TV Blackout Workaround – [2023 Edition]

Major League Baseball attracts the interest of millions of fans across the U.S. and Canada, making it a hot product in the entertainment industry. Therefore, it’s of paramount importance to find out how to bypass the MLB.TV blackout restrictions that prevent fans from watching the games online. Due to copyright restrictions and agreements with local broadcasters, some baseball matches aren’t available for live streaming.

Some of them are free to watch some time after the live match has ended while some remain out of reach. Such frustration can lead to severe deterioration of the overall experience of subscribers who wish to have all the content available at all times.

Fortunately, there’s a solution to the problem of blackout games. As you’re going to find out in this how-to article, you can easily circumvent the restrictions regardless of your location or the device you use.

a person watching Major League Baseball on his tv

Since baseball is among the most popular sports in the U.S. and Canada, it’s worth taking the time to read through our guide and figure out how to overcome the boundaries. Let’s first have a closer look at what geo-restrictions actually are.

Geo-Restrictions

As we’ve stated above, baseball is a truly popular sport. This is likely why the search terms “MLB streaming live free” and “MLB streaming free” are so popular. It also means that there are a lot of interests at stake and thus the professionals offering entertainment solutions related to baseball have a lot to lose when free live streaming is offered to everyone.

an image of a baseball player hitting a ball with his bat

After agreements, there are some limitations as to the location of the subscribers to MLB.TV that can watch every match. According to your location, you’ll be able to enjoy some of the matches but you’ll be blocked from viewing the rest of the baseball streams. This is why so many people search for “How to trick MLB TV location.” You may be able to see where the streams are available by looking at an MLB.TV blackout map.

How to Bypass MLB Stream Restrictions

Luckily for you, there’s a method to watch the blackout games that ensures you can watch any game from any location, including the U.S., Canada and every other country.

Of course, it goes without saying that you need to subscribe to MLB.TV.

This alone will grant you access to season games live on the website and the MLB TV app, as well as training games and game archives in HD. When you’re about to click on the subscription plan that you wish to purchase, you’ll notice the blackouts at the bottom of the page. They’re analytically displayed for anyone to look through.

Since all the blackouts refer to baseball matches within the U.S. or Canada, what you’re looking for is a way for you to appear to be connecting online from somewhere else. This might sound complicated, but it’s not if you use a VPN.

Use a VPN Service Provider

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. These services offer the opportunity to mask your online identity. As soon as you’ve subscribed to the VPN of your choice, you can connect to the web using any international server you want. MLB TV blackout restrictions will no longer apply and you’ll be able to watch all the baseball you want.

You can choose a local server that isn’t affected by blackouts for a specific match. Different U.S. states have different games available than other states. The steps you need to follow include:

  1. Sign up for an MLB.TV subscription.
  2. Subscribe to a quality VPN.NordVPN homepage screenshot
  3. Download and install the VPN.Download the NordVPN appInstall NordVPN
  4. Open your VPN and select a server in the city where the game isn’t blacked out. Games are usually blacked out for your local teams, so just select another U.S. city. You can double-check here.NordVPN connectinng to the United States
  5. Enjoy your streaming without the blackout restrictions.an image of a baseball player waiting to recieve a ball

What’s truly great about a VPN is the fact that you can also rest assured of your online privacy and anonymity, since it enables advanced encryption.

Additionally, you can use the very same service for unblocking thousands of other restricted sites, services and channels like Netflix, Hulu, BBC Player, Disney+, Prime Video, etc.

Pro Tip:

One of the most reliable VPN service providers that we recommend is NordVPN. They have one of the most extensive server lists within the U.S. and are also one of the cheapest making them a great choice. CyberGhost is another quality choice. They’re a bit cheaper but don’t have download speeds as quick as NordVPN and have fewer U.S.-based servers. In order to find out more about these top VPNs click here:

How Do I Know If There’s a Blackout?

What we’ve found is that if you go to the MLB website you can use a tool there to enter any ZIP code and determine if that region suffers from blackouts. You can not only use that tool to check for blackouts in your region but for other regions as well.

Note:

If your region suffers from blackouts then you’ll get an error. The type of error you’ll see will differ from time to time.

We don’t think that MLB.TV wants you to know that your region is subject to MLB.TV blackouts because that would encourage the behavior of using a VPN to watch the game.

In any case, sometimes the website will tell you that they’ve determined that you’re in a location that isn’t in their home television territories. This means that MLB.TV blackouts are in effect in your region for the game that you want to watch. Sometimes, the site will also inform you that they offer live audio of the game that you’ve selected.

At other times, you’ll find that the website tells you that it’s encountered a media error and the game you’re interested in isn’t available in your region. It may also tell you to try again later to see if you can watch the game.

Sometimes you may even see the website apologizing to you and then putting the blame on broadcasters who require the MLB.TV blackouts. The site will tell you that it can’t check if there’s a blackout in your area at the moment and that you should try again later.

As we’ll mention in the subsequent sections, there’s an easy way to bypass MLB.TV blackouts no matter what your location is inside the United States.

Things To Look for in an MLB TV VPN

To watch MLB.TV games you don’t need just any VPN. You need a VPN service that has certain features that help you bypass blackouts as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

What that means is that the VPN should have lots of server locations in the United States. Without lots of server locations in the United States, your VPN won’t be able to bypass MLB.TV restrictions in the United States so you can watch MLB.TV games in any city or state.

Major League Baseball website

If you’re using a VPN service to watch regular season games without blackout issues then make sure that your VPN comes with a fast VPN server infrastructure. If a VPN server isn’t fast enough it doesn’t matter if it can work perfectly as an MLB.TV blackout workaround because even if it could allow you to watch the games, the streams themselves wouldn’t be very fun.

Getting rid of blackout problems is serious business and you have to make sure that your VPN has a fast server network so you can watch any game you want without buffering issues.

A fast VPN server network doesn’t mean much if it’s unable to work properly when lots of other people are trying to implement MLB.TV blackout workaround solutions in their homes using the same service to watch the game.

Therefore, a good VPN server network would not only have fast VPN servers, it would also have resilient servers that can handle many streaming connections during the regular season of Major League Baseball.

This is also a good time to mention that when selecting a good VPN for these problems, people seem to either only look at the number of servers in a VPN server network or they look at the locations of those servers. You need to look at both. If the VPN you’re interested in has lots of VPN server locations but doesn’t have enough fast servers in those locations then it’s going to ruin your experience.

On the other hand, if your VPN service has lots of fast servers in its server network but doesn’t offer enough MLB blackout map locations for MLB baseball streaming then you can’t be sure if you’ll be able to watch the game at all.

a group of players playing Major League Baseball

Therefore, a good VPN allows you to change your IP address to different locations within the United States so no matter where you are, you get a new IP address for that particular location and can watch the game.

It goes without saying that you should sign up for a VPN that offers good security features and privacy tools when it’s changing your IP address. Any VPN can give you a new IP address but very few are able to effectively hide your old IP address and give you a new one.

Many VPN services are unable to offer good IP address numbers which means that users are restricted to certain regions where they can get around geo-restrictions.

The best VPNs offer a ton of unique IP address numbers and that’s exactly what you want when you’re talking about the best VPN for MLB TV.

Apart from that, it’s always a good idea to sign up for a VPN service that has a good money-back guarantee. When it comes to learning how to bypass MLB TV blackout issues and how to trick MLB.TV location, there’s no telling which VPN service works best for you. The safest path forward is to get a VPN that offers at least a 30-day money-back guarantee.

That way you can check whether or not your VPN can get around the MLB blackout. If your VPN doesn’t help with the MLB blackouts you can simply get a refund from your current VPN and then sign up for a different VPN that offers a money-back guarantee. This way you can test which VPN works for you and which one doesn’t.

With that said, you now have two options. You can search for VPNs that help you solve the problem of MLB.TV blackouts and let you watch MLB games. That’ll take you a considerable amount of time if you didn’t know that already.

Or you can click here and read our guide to the best VPN providers that’ll help you avoid the blackouts.

How to Bypass MLB.TV Blackouts on Android

It can be difficult to get a VPN to remove geo-restrictions to get around MLB.TV blackouts. However, there are some methods you can try to watch MLB games by getting around the blackouts.

A couple of years ago it used to be relatively straightforward. All you had to do was to get the MLB at Bat app on your Android phone and you were done. Now, the situation is different. Connecting to a server located somewhere in the U.S., getting a new IP address and removing blackout problems doesn’t work anymore. Even if you try to watch MLB games by removing blackout problems using fake GPS apps, it simply won’t work.

Major League Baseball running on a tv

Before watching any MLB regular season game, the MLB at Bat app now checks the GPS location of the user. The MLB.TV systems are now advanced enough to recognize if a user is using a VPN or a GPS app to change their location to watch MLB games.

If you try to use the method we’ve described above, the MLB app will tell you that it couldn’t verify your real location and that you can tap the Help button to get more information on why MLB.TV has blackout restrictions.

Today, the method which has the highest chance of success is rooting your Android device. There are many guides on the internet on how to root your device with no general guidelines. All will depend on the make, model and version of your Android operating system.

Warning:

Note that rooting isn’t a process you can take lightly. It can permanently disable your device if you don’t know what you’re doing.

In any case, once you’ve rooted your device you need to install an app called FakeGPS. Then get the MLB app on your Android device. Clear the app cache and proceed.

Method 1: Use the Mock Locations App

  1. Assuming your phone is rooted you need to click here to get the Hide Mock Locations app. Then go to Settings and enable Allow Mock Locations from the Developer Options. You can also use another spoofing app for your GPS.
  2. Run the app you downloaded above and change the mode to Blacklist. From there, add the app MLB at Bat.
  3. Launch the GPS spoofing app. Change the position of the pin to anywhere but the blackout region. Make sure you have a server in there otherwise there’s no use.
  4. Launch your VPN app and connect to a server that’s as close as possible to the pin location you set on the GPS spoofing app you’re using.
  5. Launch the MLB at Bat app and start streaming.

Method 2: Change the Directory of /data/app

  1. Get a file manager app that uses root (like Root Explorer) and then change the location of your /data/app folder for the fake GPS app to /system/app.
  2. Reboot your Android.
  3. Disable Mock Locations via Settings and Developer Options.
  4. Go to whichever fake GPS app you’re using and choose a location where there’s a server free and no blackouts.
  5. Launch the VPN app, choose a server close to the location you chose and start watching MLB games. If anything doesn’t work just log out of the MLB At Bat app, delete app data and log in again.

Method 3: Use XPrivacy

  1. Get the XPrivacy app. When you get to the point of installing the MLB at Bat app, instead of giving the permissions from the shown list you should open the Settings menu and then click the button that says Randomize Now.
  2. Choose an IP address that doesn’t fall under any blackout region. Only give the MLB at Bat app permission to access the internet and nothing else.
  3. With the MLB at Bat app permissions restricted you need to go to Settings again and turn on High Accuracy mode for your location. Only when that’s done should you finish the MLB at Bat app installation process.

This is important:

We want to remind you again that rooting your Android device is going to void its warranty and can mess with your device’s default security features. Only follow the above methods if nothing else works for you and you’re willing to spend a lot of time configuring your device to watch games on MLB TV.

Can I Use SmartDNS Services To Watch MLB Games?

Smart DNS services used to work with MLB game programs but not anymore. Smart DNS services simply don’t have the privacy and security features to get past restrictions and let you watch your game on TV.

Our suggestion would be to not use Smart DNS services to watch the game. Even if they’re free you shouldn’t use them to watch any game. SmartDNS services give you an illusion of privacy and security while you watch your game. Again, we’re assuming here that these services let you watch your game which they won’t.

Just use a VPN to watch the game and you’ll stay safe.

From everything that’s been highlighted in this how-to guide, you can see that watching MLB.TV games is a lot more approachable than you may have thought. Try our suggestions and see which of them does the trick for you and provides you with the optimal services.

Of course, you’re free to share with us your comments, your complaints or your opinions in the comment section below.

Stella Strouvali Stella is a certified writer and zealous wordsmith, a true fan of Placebo, technology, Panionios and wellness. Still, her true passion has to do with eagerly learning new things and passing them on to others. “An unexamined life is not worth living”, to quote Socrates.

5 thoughts on “The Easy MLB TV Blackout Workaround – [2023 Edition]”

  1. The best way to get around MLB.TV Blackouts is to use VPN. I personally use VPN and totally get uninterrupted streaming. VPN is safe,secure and low on budget.

    Reply
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