I moved to Spain last October, but I installed a VPN beforehand thinking that I could access YouTubeTV upon my arrival. No go. I was relegated to watching Sunday morning highlights on YouTube (as I am at the moment). Can anyone explain to me IN SIMPLE TERMS what I might do access ESPN and its affiliates since YouTubeTV apparently can detect that I am attempting to accept its platform from abroad. Firestick? Something else. Thanks much.

I would say the first thing to try would be another VPN server and then another and another.

I watch MLB.TV using VPN, but their app is able to block at least 95% Surfshark's servers. I spent the first couple of days of this season finding servers that worked reliably.

I don't have any experience with VPN and YTTV.

EDIT - Maybe this will be helpful?

How to watch YouTube TV from abroad with a VPN in 2025
https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/watch-youtube-tv-abroad-vpn/

Have you tried going directly through the ESPN app vs. the YouTubeTV app?

I hope this makes sense:

My guess your phone is telling on you. Your VPN is probably doing its thing just fine.

For example, your YouTube TV account is signed in with your email address. Your TV says it's in the USA and your phone show your current location plus location trail.

The method I have found that works is a bit cumbersome at the setup but works perfectly once you get through it.

This example is for nordvpn AND having a slot available for The YouTube TV family plan, meaning another email available to add to the account.


#1 login to the VPN and choose the city and state in which you want to watch your sports and local TV. If you are not sure how to do that, just Google how to select a specific City from the nordvpn list. There are a lot of examples

#2 Make sure you have an email as a recovery email. This would be a good time to create a proton mail while still logged into that specific city you want to watch Sports in from your VPN.

#3 while still being logged into the locale, create a new Gmail account that will only be used to watch your sports in that area. It is going to ask for a recovery email. I believe you can skip the phone number. Do not enter your existing email or anything that you have added as a Google account. Even if you added your work domain, youremployer. com or whatever it actually is.

This is where you set your recovery email to that brand new proton mail or whatever you have, and is not your normal Gmail.

#4 from your phone or other device not logged into a VPN, add your brand new Gmail as an authorized user for your family account.

#5 once that account is added, make sure to only use while logged in to the VPN that is set to that city and state you chose to watch sports in.

#6 ****** Do not add this account to your phone because then your phone will tell on that account too. As far as Google is concerned, the only location it will have ever received is from the VPN. If you are going to use your laptop and the HDMI to plug in, I would clear all the cache, cookies, history and so on. Then log into the VPN with the previously identified city and state. Then log into your YouTube TV account with that new Gmail.

#7.....I have a really cheap router that lets me run the VPN on it. During football season I have an old Roku that connects to that router. It's the only thing connected to it. So it's more than fast enough to do TV.

The key is that the Gmail account is only associated with that one location and never given an opportunity to update its location anywhere else except that VPN. If it were to ever get connected to a phone, I'd have to repeat the process.

Some VPNs offer dedicated IP addresses. This generally gets you around any issues of sites blocking vpns, but it can double your subscription

Another solution instead of a VPN is to look into a proxy. https://www.homingsystems.com/ is a proxy that runs thru residential connections and so it makes it look like you're just at a house in the states. You can even set it up to run through your home or relative/friend's house. It does nothing to encrypt your connections, but as far as ESPN/YoutubeTV/Netflix are concerned, they think youre sitting in that house watching the game.

Keep in mind that many of these services have started logging IP address ranges belonging to these various VPN companies. I don't know how many IP's these service providers have access to, but there are a limited number that exist in their inventory, so many other sites and providers are able to start seeing patterns in the IP's connecting to their services.

You need to pay extra for a VPN with a dedicated residential ip address to have any chance of Youtube TV to work.

Alternatively, if you have a friend or family member who lives in the US willing to set it up for you, they could run a VPN server at their house that you can log into. GL.inet makes routers that do all this for you. You would need one on each end with the US side running the server and yours running as a client. You can even set it so only your TV or streaming device routes traffic through the VPN.