The Indian Premier League has evolved into a tournament of humongous proportions, with multi-million attendance and viewership in and outside of India. IPL’s international popularity is no surprise – the world’s best players participate in the tournament, so its fans are guaranteed first-class entertainment.
Where to stream the Indian Premier League online
If you don’t want to miss a single day of action in the IPL arena, here’s everything you need to know about streaming the tournament in and outside of India.
In India
Star India or Star Sports, a subsidiary of the 21st Century Fox, holds a five-year contract for the global media rights to the IPL in the most expensive broadcast deal in the history of cricket ($2.5 billion).
It means you can stream IPL with Hotstar app available on Android, iOS, and Amazon Fire TV stick in various languages, including English. Also, the JioTV and Airtel TV apps offer IPL live streams for free in India.
In the UK
If you have a cable subscription in the UK, Sky Sports provides your daily cricket fix. You can watch IPL on TV or stream the events live through the Sky Go app. The network also offers a Day Pass and a Week Pass, in case you want to give it a try before committing.
Alternatively, NOW TV includes Sky Sports coverage and doesn’t impose lock-in contracts, which is perfect for cord-cutters.
In the U.S.
Willow TV is your one-stop shop for cricket streams, including the IPL 2019. It’s a dedicated cricket channel in Canada and the US available through Verizon, Fios, Xfinity, Spectrum, and Dish, to name a few.
You can also stream the IPL 2019 through Willow TV’s online platform, using your cable provider login and pass. Or, you could use Willow TV mobile app for Android and iOS to stream IPL on the go.
Below is a short list of the official IPL 2019 TV partners outside of India:
Why use a VPN to stream IPL
If you’ve been looking for free ways to stream the tournament, JioTV, Airtel TV, and Hotstar’s free trial should get you through the season, but they are available only in India.
If you are paying for Willow TV or NOW TV back in the US or UK, but are currently traveling abroad, you can’t access your premium stream.
But don’t worry because there’s a quick fix to your streaming woes. A VPN enables you to change your IP address and watch the cricket tournament as if you were in India, or in the US, or UK, depending on your streaming preferences.
Here’s how it works – a Virtual Private Network is a service running VPN servers across the world. It lets you anchor your Internet connection to almost any country by routing your traffic through a server in that location.
Suppose you want to spoof into India to stream through Airtel TV or Hotstar – connect to a VPN server in India and head over to your streaming portal. With an Indian IP address, all sites identify you as a regular customer coming from India. Problem solved.
Besides allowing you to spoof into almost any country, a VPN also encrypts your traffic, which means:
- Your Internet Service Provider can’t monitor your online activities or throttle your bandwidth.
- Hackers can’t decipher your information and steal your sensitive data, such as credit card details.
- School and office firewalls can’t block you from accessing your sports streaming and gaming sites.
- You can unlock a variety of foreign streaming sites and access region-restricted deals when shopping online.
How to stream the Indian Premier League with a VPN
- Buy a VPN subscription and install your VPN client.
- Launch it and connect to a server in the country of your choice (in India to stream with Hotstar, in the UK to unlock NOW TV, in the US to stream through Willow TV).
- Clear your browser’s cache and cookies.
- Go to your streaming site – you are all set to watch the IPL cricketing tournament from anywhere in the world.
Best VPNs to stream the Indian Premier League online
I can’t recommend any free VPNs for sports streaming, as they tend to offer insufficient data allowance, poor speeds, and no privacy. My top VPN picks have servers in India while boasting an overall broad network coverage across the world, top-tier speeds apt for HD streaming, and robust 6security specs.
IPVanish
- No limit on the number of devices you can connect at the same time
- SOCKS5 proxy, which its main rivals don’t have
- More VPN servers in more US cities to dodge blackouts
PureVPN
- Excellent client with pre-configured modes for streaming, P2P, privacy
- Kill switch
- Support for wide range of protocols, including OpenVPN