Watching O’s games on MLB.TV with VPN

[Obando]

17 minutes ago, Malike said:

Not all VPN's are the same, unfortunately. I traveled a lot, so I needed a VPN that would work with MLB.TV and Netflix. NordVPN is where I ended up and I haven't had any issues with blacked-out MLB games.

I’m already paying for Express VPN but I might need to try NordVPN as well and see if that works any better.  I don’t want to have to pay for a 2nd VPN, but if that’s the only shot I have to be able to watch the games, I’d be willing to bite the bullet.  

[Ridgway22]

1 minute ago, Malike said:

You're welcome, I hope it works as well for you as it does for me. They have excellent tech support if needed also via chat or phone. (No, I do not work there).

When I'm out in the Revel van, I use Starlink/RV, and it has a Denver IP, which is great. I'll set Nord to Denver and hopefully, BigBrotherMLB will think I've moved there!

[Malike]

1 minute ago, Ridgway22 said:

When I'm out in the Revel van, I use Starlink/RV, and it has a Denver IP, which is great. I'll set Nord to Denver and hopefully, BigBrotherMLB will think I've moved there!

I live in NY, so when I want to watch the O's vs the NY teams I usually pick Chicago, St. Louis, or KC and all of them work fine. I know some streaming companies are really good about detecting if you are using a VPN and blocking it, but Nord seems to keep ahead of them in my experience.

[Oriole1940]

48 minutes ago, Ridgway22 said:

I live south of Las Vegas, and am blacked for all Padres, Angels, Dodgers, Giants, A's, and Diamondback games. I had been using Private Internet Access VPN and could usually find a combination of browser / private window / clear cookies / VPN location that would work when O's are playing those teams. As of about a week ago, no joy.

It's amazing the lengths MLB will go to, to keep fans from watching their games.

I agree on MLB.com  I could write a book on the aggravation they have caused me over the years and even this year.  It is like they are the enemy of baseball and do wharever they can to restrict the enjoyment of it even when your subscription is paid up.

[dystopia]

Tried the VPN and it's working for me today. 

[Ridgway22]

Signed up for Nord, and didn't work at first with default browser, had to fiddle with combos, and finally was able to get through using Denver, Safari (Mac), with a private window.

[dystopia]

22 minutes ago, Ridgway22 said:

Signed up for Nord, and didn't work at first with default browser, had to fiddle with combos, and finally was able to get through using Denver, Safari (Mac), with a private window.

I'm using the VPN that comes with Norton 360 antivirus. 

[oriole]

Are you telling me you reached out to customer service to try to figure out why your work around wouldn’t work anymore? Please tell me I’m misunderstanding

 

I also use Express VPN and can only consistently watch games on my phone with it. I use it with my fire stick also and it’s a coin toss as to whether or not it’ll work. But what does seem to work if I feel like putting in the effort is deleting the MLB app and then downloading it again. Still isn’t really 100% though. Also, sometimes just changing your city works. 
 

Hope you figure it out! But please don’t email MLB about it. They’ll eventually figure out how to keep us out

[tntoriole]

Only MLB still adheres to the quaint 20th century, 1960s era  “blackout” mentality despite the changes in technology. 

They could charge me whatever they want for live streaming access and I would pay it. 
Never seen any business so unwilling to let me spend any price for their product and them to say “sorry, no cause it might keep you from driving the 6 hours to see the team” 

[Malike]

20 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

Only MLB still adheres to the quaint 20th century, 1960s era  “blackout” mentality despite the changes in technology. 

They could charge me whatever they want for live streaming access and I would pay it. 
Never seen any business so unwilling to let me spend any price for their product and them to say “sorry, no cause it might keep you from driving the 6 hours to see the team” 

It's got nothing to do with them thinking you need to drive 6 hours to see the game, it's the RSN who thinks you need to pay for their cable service in order to see the game and MLB.TV has to respect that. It's dumb, but it is what it is.

[tntoriole]

14 minutes ago, Malike said:

It's got nothing to do with them thinking you need to drive 6 hours to see the game, it's the RSN who thinks you need to pay for their cable service in order to see the game and MLB.TV has to respect that. It's dumb, but it is what it is.

No other entertainment product has any issue with taking my money 

[Malike]

1 minute ago, tntoriole said:

No other entertainment product has any issue with taking my money 

If MASN is available on your cable provider they'll be happy to take your money and then you can watch to your hearts content. I can't get MASN in NY so I have to get MLB.TV.

[drjohnnyfever1]

7 hours ago, Malike said:

I live in NY, so when I want to watch the O's vs the NY teams I usually pick Chicago, St. Louis, or KC and all of them work fine. I know some streaming companies are really good about detecting if you are using a VPN and blocking it, but Nord seems to keep ahead of them in my experience.

To the OP - - - This!  Nord is excellent.  I would suggest using a dedicated ip in an out of area market and use whatever "private browsing" feature you have with your browser too.  That way the history is not saved and MLB recognizes that ip as your usual one.  If you don't use Nord, they should all have options for types of connections, I think.  My Bitdefender does.

[scarey1999]

Although I don’t have their paid service presently, another vote for Nord.  I used to travel abroad semi regularly (mostly Europe) for extended periods of time on business prior to 2019. Nord was the only one I could get to work consistently.

As another posted pointed out, the other key was using the private browser session so that cookie/location tracking was limited. 

[NashLumber]

I have the same VPN as the original poster. I had PIA for three years and for about 90 of the games this year, but about three weeks ago, it finally would not connect no matter what I did. I'm in Durham NC. So I tried NordVPN and that worked only one day, so I cancelled. 

Express VPN works for me consistently for me in the first ten days I’ve had it. But as someone said upthread, I use it on Firefox and it's the only browsing I do on that browser. So far, I have not needed to clear the cache. Where sometimes I get the "browser does not support auto video" prompt, I just click that box to get rid of it and click the arrow on the thumbnail of the video in the middle of the MLB-TV window. Knock on wood, but it's worked every time and both on my Mac mini (through my HDTV) and on my MacBook Air. 

Edited August 21, 2023 by NashLumber