How to Live Stream the UEFA Euro

The UEFA Euro, or Euro 2020, is the 16th UEFA European Championship scheduled to kick off in the summer of 2020. Breaking the tradition, it will be staged in 12 different venues across the continent and feature 24 teams instead of 16. UEFA even dubbed it as a “party all over Europe” and a “romantic” one-off event to mark the 60th “birthday” of the European Championship. This time, there is no automatic qualifier – each of the 55 member nations will have to earn its place.

Breaking the tradition, it will be staged in 12 different venues across the continent and feature 24 teams instead of 16. UEFA even dubbed it as a “party all over Europe” and a “romantic” one-off event to mark the 60th “birthday” of the European Championship. This time, there is no automatic qualifier – each of the 55 member nations will have to earn its place.

If you’re planning on attending at least one of the games in person, the official UEFA EURO 2020 website has a nifty EURO 2020 Ticket Portal. Register, specify your team and travel preferences, and get notified about the ticket sale when it launches. But if your plan is to watch EURO 2020 with a TV remote in one hand and a bag of fresh bagels in the other, you’ve come to the right place.

Where to stream the UEFA Euro 2020 online

EURO 2020 is Europe’s largest football tournament, so it will be broadcast via TV and radio all over the world. In the U.S. and UK, the official Euro 2020 broadcasters include your traditional sports streaming giants:

• The United Kingdom – BBC, ITV
• The United States – ESPN, Univision

Luckily for the UK soccer buffs, the ITV and BBC have retained the rights to EURO 2020. Which means you can live-stream the games for free via BBC iPlayer and ITV HUB. Also, Sky Sports will broadcast all England friendlies and other nations’ home games.Unfortunately, viewers in the U.S. are out of free options because both Univision and ESPN are subscription-based services. The ESPN’s coverage is also available via SlingTV, which is also a paid service.

Why use a VPN to stream the UEFA Euro 2020

All broadcasting channels and digital streaming services are locked to their respective countries. You can not live stream EURO 2020 with BBC iPlayer outside the UK. Likewise, you can’t take advantage of your SlingTV or ESPN subscription when you are abroad.

The restriction is due to the broadcast licensing imposed by UEFA – each broadcaster has rights to the EURO 2020 coverage in select countries only. That’s why your physical location is more important than your citizenship or the country where you initially bought your subscription. This means thousands of expats, vacationing tourists, and digital nomads miss out on their premium sports and TV shows streaming subscriptions.

A VPN is a quick and wallet-friendly fix to the geo-blocking. A Virtual Private Network changes your Internet Protocol (IP) address, allowing you to travel virtually to almost any country.

Here is how it works: a VPN routes your Internet traffic through its servers located in different countries. For example, when you connect to a UK server, you get a UK IP address. As a result, BBC iPlayer or ITV identifies you as a UK-based user and you can stream their content for free. Problem solved.

Apart from unblocking a laundry list of streaming services (BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and more), VPNs offer no-nonsense privacy and security perks:

• Encryption – by encrypting your Internet traffic, a VPN masks its contents from both your nosy Internet Service Provider and hackers, especially on public WiFi.
• No Firewalls – VPNs are prime tools for bypassing office or school firewalls, as well as censorship and other access restrictions imposed by governments (for instance, the firewalls of China, Iran, or Russia).
• No Throttling – when you stream movies and sports, play online games, or torrent, your ISP caps your bandwidth. Throttling tends to have a drastic effect on your connection speeds. A VPN helps you bypass your ISP throttling and stream sports events live without the annoying caps.
• Semi-anonymity – if you intend to spoof into the UK or US, you are well-advised to do it via a VPN to avoid getting into a legal dispute with copyright trolls.

How to live stream the UEFA Euro 2020 with a VPN

It might be a good idea to scrutinize your provider’s Privacy Policy and ToS to make sure it does not share your browsing activity logs with third parties. If privacy is top of mind for you, steer clear of free VPNs because the majority of free VPN’s keep details of your online activity and share them with everyone and their dog, including copyright trolls. That’s how they monetize their services.

Best VPNs to live stream the UEFA Euro 2020 from anywhere in the world

Dublin is the planned venue for the Euro 2020 qualifying draw on December 2, 2018, while the qualifiers will last March through November 2019. The first matches of Euro 2020 will kick off starting June 12, 2020, and the iconic Wembley Stadium in London will host both the semifinals and the final match. Check the official UEFA 2020 website for schedule updates and fixtures as we getting closer to the qualifiers.

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