While all the matches of the Bundesliga and 2. Liga are aired by Sky, the Dritte Liga only gets some love at the end of the season when the relegation is due. ARD broadcasts some of the third-division matches and highlights for free, which amounts to approximately two games per match day.

Deutsche Telekom televises all 380 games via Telekom Sport in full HD, and you can watch them online in your browser or via your smartphone or tablet. If you are a Telekom customer with EntertainTV subscription, your 3. Liga access is free. Otherwise, it’s €9.99/mo, but the coverage is comprehensive and complete with German commentary, interviews, analysis of the games, and on-demand replays.

As far as the alternative live streams are concerned, you need to hop from one streaming provider to another since there is hardly a centralized coverage for the league other than Telekom Sport.

Regional broadcasters occasionally cover the matches, so you could try your luck with MDR Fernseher, WDR Fernseher, NDR Fernseher, Gellert-Welle, or via Sportschau.de, which offers links to respective streams in one organized 3. Liga category. Sportschau also has mobile apps for Android and iOS.

None of the big-name foreign broadcasters streams the 3. Liga beyond Germany. This leaves all the 3. Liga fans outside of Germany with bare-bones highlights.

Thousands of German expats, business tourists, vacationers, exchange students, and digital nomads are left empty-handed even if they have a Telekom Sport subscription. The reason is in its broadcasting license, which limits the provider to the national territory.

The good news is we live in the digital age and you can easily pretend to be in Germany and stream your 3. Liga via Telekom Sport – by using a VPN.

A Virtual Private Network is a web of servers across the world. When you connect to a VPN server in Germany, it assigns you a German IP address. In the VPN jargon, we call it spoofing. So, once you spoof into Germany, Telekom Sport identifies you as a customer coming from the national territory and lets you stream the 3. Liga. Mission accomplished.

Since a VPN is a security tool in the first place, it encrypts your traffic top to bottom, which bundles additional benefits:

  • Your Internet Service Provider can’t see what you’re doing online
  • You can easily bypass your ISP throttling
  • Your data is secured against Man-in-the-Middle attacks and honeypots
  • You can evade your school and office firewalls
  • You can unlock a wealth of foreign streaming and gaming sites – Netflix, Steam, iTunes, and more
  1. Choose a VPN provider with servers in Germany and subscribe to one of its plans.
  2. Download and install the VPN client on your device.
  3. Connect to a VPN server in Germany.
  4. Clear your browser’s cache and go to the Telekom Sport website.
  5. Log in and stream the 3. Liga – from anywhere in the world.

Tip: see if you can connect to a server in Germany that is geographically closer to your current location. This will help you mitigate the speed loss while streaming. For example, if you are in Asia, connect to a server in Eastern Germany, but if you are in the US, connect to the Westernmost German region.

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