All UK cycling fans now know that as of Feb 28, all Eurosport cycling coverage we have all enjoyed for a reasonable £6.99 a month via Discovery+ or included via some other bundle is being pushed onto TNT Sports behind their paywall which boosts the cost to an eye-watering £30.99 a month. Cycling fans don’t want football and other premium sports, which this subscription effectively pays for. Quite frankly it’s a money-grab at the detriment to the sport’s fanbase in my opinion.
Anyway, TV politics aside we need a (legal!) way around it.
When the start of the classics season started filtering into my cycling feeds I decided to see if I can get round the geo-restrictions that TNT Sports have in place in the UK. So here is my take on how I think I can watch the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and other Belgian classics this weekend and in the future.
What you need
- A website that streams it for free
- A VPN
Many European countries will broadcast cycling coverage for free. Sporza.be is one of them (I think!) and this is the one I opted for.
But first you need to ‘fool’ Sporza that you are viewing from Belgium and thats where a VPN comes in. A piece of software which you encrypt your internet connection over. The VPN alows you to connect to servers in various countries to ‘spoof’ your connection. I use Bitdefender and connected to a Belgian Server. With this in place and on, now for the app.
I downloaded the Sporza.be app. Signed up using my Google account (it’s in Flemish or Dutch but it’s easy enough to understand). I had to enter my date of birth and it required a Belgian postcode. I simply googled ‘Belgian Postcode Finder’, ran a parcel website that came up and typed in the first city name that came to mind. I chose Zeebrugge with a Zip Code of 8380. This completed my registration and allowed me to access the app. I poked around a bit and viewed some video content without issue so I think it will probably work.
All I need to do now is wait for the race, stream it on the app and cast it to my TV. Done.
Caveats
This is all for the price of the VPN. BitDefender currently have the app @ £2.50 per month for 12 months and of course the commentary won’t be English and Sporza may not broadcast all the races you want.
Happy Watching!
