The Best VPNs to Watch MLB.TV

In our tests, no other VPN could match ExpressVPN’s performance at bypassing both local and national blackouts.

We get round MLB.TV’s local blackouts by getting a US VPN IP location from outside our team’s home market.

ExpressVPN made this incredibly easy thanks to its huge network of 6,250 US servers in 57 different cities, which worked close to 100% of the time.

Other VPN contenders also cover many US cities however some of their servers didn’t work with MLB.TV. For example, only 50% of Private Internet Access’s US servers worked with MLB.TV.

That being said, MLB.TV has been more aggressive at blocking VPN IP addresses, so on rare occasions we had to cycle through a couple of server locations to find a working one.

Watching national games was just as easy, with 104 countries to choose from outside the US and Canada. The fastest and most effective international servers were in Belgium, Germany and Portugal.

Although many VPNs work with MLB.TV, only the best can stream games in maximum resolution and without buffering.

In our streaming tests, ExpressVPN performed better than any other MLB.TV-compatible VPN. Live streams loaded instantly, at full resolution, with no unexpected slowdowns or interruptions.

From one of our test locations in New York, we checked ExpressVPN’s speeds connecting to a wide range of server locations across the US and internationally.

Our streaming speeds dropped by a tiny 2% on connections to server locations outside our blackout area.

And connecting to overseas VPN servers, our speeds slowed down by only 15%.

You can see our full results from testing ExpressVPN in the table below:

What’s more, we enjoyed similar exceptional streaming performances using the VPN with NBA League Pass and to watch out-of-market NFL games on NFL Game Pass.

To watch geo-restricted games on the MLB.TV Android app, both your VPN and your GPS location must be outside your local team’s blackout area. This is where we prefer Surfshark over ExpressVPN.

While ExpressVPN requires you to use a separate GPS spoofer app to bypass these restrictions, Surfshark’s ‘Override GPS Location’ feature is built into its Android app.

This seamless functionality eliminates the need for an additional app on your device, which Android users will value.

On the plus side, ExpressVPN is the only provider with a dedicated VPN router app to easily connect all your household devices, including those that don’t support VPN software e.g. PlayStation, Xbox or Roku Sticks.

A dedicated router app also removes the hassle of manual VPN router configuration, which is often complicated and not suitable for VPN beginners.

Out of all of Surfshark’s advanced settings, its Override GPS Location function is the one that really shone the most in our tests with MLB.TV.

As we explained in our instructions, the MLB.TV Android app requires access to your GPS location to function, which you can’t turn off.

Regular VPNs only change your IP address, and not your GPS data. As such, almost every VPN doesn’t work with the MLB.TV on Android unless you use it alongside a GPS spoofing app.

Surfshark is in the only VPN, alongside Windscribe (Pro) and IVPN, to include this function in its Android app.

We were really impressed with how well Override GPS Location consistently bypassed MLB.TV’s location restrictionson Android.

Surfshark’s Override GPS Location is ideal for unblocking app content on Android.

The way it works is that, once set up and activated, Override GPS Location matches your GPS coordinates to the VPN server’s IP location.

It will then automatically change your GPS location as you change VPN server location, ensuring there is never a mismatch between your IP and GPS location.

We love this rare feature, which is also why it Surfshark is an excellent VPN for watching blackout NHL games on ESPN+, whose Android app also uses GPS data.

Surfshark’s compatibility with other platforms and devices isn’t as good as ExpressVPN’s, though.

The provider’s Smart DNS service didn’t failed to bypass any blackout on MLB.TV on our Smart TV but, in all fairness, ExpressVPN had the same issue.

However, unlike ExpressVPN, Surfshark doesn’t have a router app. To use the VPN on devices like Roku, Smart TVs, and older Chromecast devices, you’ll have to set up a virtual router instead.

Moreover, Surfshark’s speed losses are noticeably higher than ExpressVPN’s, particularly over longer distrances. Connecting around the globe, our internet speed slowed down by 17% on average, compared to ExpressVPN’s 15%.

All in all, Surfshark is a reliable and affordable VPN for MLB.TV, but unless you’re an Android user, ExpressVPN will provide a more dependable and enjoyable experience.

The free version of Windscribe lets you connect to eight US cities in seven different states, spread nicely across the nation. These include popular locations, like New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.

All its free US locations worked with MLB.TV, which is really impressive considering the number of customers using these servers.

By contrast, other free VPNs like Proton VPN and Hide.me only have servers in one or two US cities. We found it much harder to get around geo-restrictions using them.

Windscribe also runs free servers in 9 more countries, which proved very useful for getting around national blackouts. The 10Gbps free servers in the UK delivered the fastest speeds.

Windscribe’s two free server locations in the UK.

There were two main issues we faced testing Windscribe’s free VPN with MLB.TV: its 10GB monthly data limit, and its unreliable speeds.

Windscribe’s monthly data allowance is a major downside if you want to watch regularly watch games. We could only stream roughly four hours of baseball before our data maxed out. We couldn’t even get through two full games.

To add to our frustration, during those four hours, our stream often went blurry, or stopped entirely. This was due to fluctuating speeds with drops of 13% on average.

While using a 100% free is tempting, maybe a better option for short-term use is choosing Surfshark’s or ExpressVPN’s free trial. But if you’re ok with its limitations, then Windscribe is by far the best free VPN for MLB.TV.