Sports 3 min. read

How to watch NCAA March Madness basketball online for free

How to watch NCAA March Madness basketball online for free

The NCAA Basketball Championship tournament (better known as March Madness) has kicked off. If you don’t want to miss out on the action, read on to find out how you can get March Madness streaming live online—from anywhere in the world.

March Madness streaming with a U.S. cable subscription

If you live in the US, you can catch the games on CBS, TNT, TBS, and TruTV. You can also stream games from the March Madness Live channel. The March Madness Live app will stream the games on your Android, iOS, or Windows mobile.

Alternatively, you can watch March Madness using Sling TV ($20/month, comes with a free 7-day trial) which will give you access to TBS and TNT broadcasts on your computer, phone, or tablet. Hulu is also providing NCAA March Madness streaming and offers a free trial.

March Madness streaming for free (without a cable subscription)

The easiest way to watch the games without cable is to download a Virtual Private Network, or VPN. A VPN encrypts your online activities by rerouting your traffic through its secure servers, thus making your browsing experience anonymous. Hotspot Shield VPN allows you to change the location of those servers to a different country, essentially fooling the site you’re trying to visit into thinking you’re located somewhere else. (For example, if streaming is free for U.S. residents but you’re in the U.K., you simply connect to the Hotspot Shield server located in the U.S. and, voila, the website will think you’re located there and let you in.)

Here’s what you need to do.

Step 1: Download Hotspot Shield for free from your app store on mobile or desktop

Step 2: Start the free 7-day trial (if you are you located outside of the US, you need to upgrade to Premium to switch virtual locations)

Step 3: Change your virtual location to the United States

Step 4: Go to March Madness Live to stream the games live.

Keep in mind that If you don’t have cable, things get a little more confusing. You can still use the March Madness app—you do not need a login to watch on-demand videos, or any of the live games on CBS. And if you want to watch a non-CBS game (on TBS, TNT, or TruTV) the app gives you a 3-hour grace period before requiring you to log in. You can still watch every CBS game for free no matter what, but you only get three free hours of streaming from the other channels.

Click below to get your Free Hotspot Shield VPN download:

march madness streaming

Hotspot Shield’s free version comes by default with the U.S. location and a limited access to streaming content. When you upgrade to Hotspot Shield Premium (premium version starts at $2.99/month), you instantly gain access to 62 virtual locations, faster speed, unlimited bandwidth, and the ability to activate your license on up to 5 devices simultaneously.

How to get March Madness streaming on restricted WiFi networks

On certain WiFi networks, you may be unable to get March Madness streaming online due to restrictions. You can use Hotspot Shield to provide access and connect to streaming sites via our U.S. virtual location.

Hotspot Shield’s servers in the U.S. will access the content on your behalf and transmit the content back to your device. Since Hotspot Shield encrypts the content, the firewall won’t be able to detect the type of content transmitted to your device and will therefore not block it.

How to stream NCAA March Madness from abroad

Although the NCAA March Madness is one of the most popular sporting events, the games are only available to viewers in the USA. This means that if you are staying abroad, you will be blocked due to the geo-restrictions imposed by the TV service providers.

The TV service providers can detect your location by the IP address of the device you are using to connect to the internet. So, if you don’t have a U.S. IP address, you will get blocked. As we mentioned earlier, the good news is that by using Hotspot Shield, it can bypass these geo-restrictions. Follow the instructions above.

Using Hotspot Shield to watch NCAA March Madness games from anywhere

Hotspot Shield gives you a virtual U.S. IP address, which will enable you to stream the games without running into location-based restrictions or firewalls.

Added bonus: If you happen to be streaming the games on a public WiFi hotspot, Hotspot Shield will also protect and secure your device, preventing hackers from stealing any sensitive information you keep on your laptop or mobile.

Hotspot Shield has support for multiple devices and platforms so you can access your favorite content on Mac, Windows, Android, or iOS.

march madness streaming

Get the latest stories and tips from Hotspot Shield in your inbox