How to Watch EHF Euro Handball 2020 Championship Live Online
From January 9th, 2020 till January 26th, 2020, Austria, Norway, and Sweden will host one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the EHF Euro Handball 2020 Championship. The 14th edition of the tournament will feature 24 teams for the first time. So, you can imagine how high the level of intensity and excitement will be. Well, you can join in on the action as in this guide, I’m going to show you how to watch the 2020 Euro Handball Championship live online wherever you are.
EHF Euro Handball 2020 – Global Coverage
EHF is setting a new milestone on the road to the Men’s EHF EURO 2020. This year, it will be the biggest to date as the championship now features 24 teams competing for the title.
Now, an event with such magnitude deserves global coverage, which is exactly what you’ll be getting thanks to the EHF’s wide range of broadcasting partners across the world.
But before you proceed, I’d like to inform you that all of the channels the list I’ve assembled below are geo-restricted to their respective regions. In other words, if you live outside the countries mentioned next to the services, you’re not allowed to stream their content.
These channels apply what we call geo-blocking. It’s a defense mechanism used by companies and services to restrict user access to a specific location.
They rely on your IP address to determine your current physical whereabouts. If you don’t hold one that’s valid in the channel’s country, you’ll be blocked almost instantly.
Here are the 2020 EHG Euro Handball official TV broadcasters:
- beIN Sports (France, USA, MENA)
- ORF (Free, Austria)
- Ziggo Go (The Netherlands)
- TV2 Play (Denmark)
- TV2 Sumo (Norway)
- ZDF (Free, Germany)
- ViaPlay (Sweden)
2020 EHF European Men’s Handball Championship – Live Streaming Anywhere
As I mentioned above, your IP is the main reason why your location is compromised and pinpointed by streaming services. To circumvent the issue and bypass regional restrictions, you must change that.
Well, there is a way to do so, and it comes in the form of a Virtual Private Network. Commonly knowns as a VPN, a virtual private network is a cybersecurity tool that encrypts your data (enhanced security) and hides your location (extra privacy).
A VPN reroutes your internet traffic through a remote server in a country of your choosing. Once you connect to a server, the VPN will cloak your current IP address and replace it with one in the region where the server is based.
As a result, you’ll be viewed as a current resident in the country and have direct access to whatever services/websites restricted there. For example, if the server is located in Germany, you’ll receive a German IP address. Consequently, you’ll be able to stream the likes of DAZN (Germany), Sky DE, and of course, ZDF.
The Steps
Follow these instructions to stream the 2020 EHF European Men’s Handball Championship live regardless of your current physical location:
- First, subscribe to a VPN service. Stay away from free services; they’ll do you more harm than good. If you want our personal recommendation, try ExpressVPN out.
- Once you sign up, download and install their dedicated VPN application on your device, you’ll find clients on Android, PC, Mac, iOS, Android, as well as FireStick.
- Next, activate the app, sign in with your username and password, and navigate to the server list.
- Choose and connect to a server based on the channel you wish to unblock:
- German server for ZDF.
- US server for beIN Sports.
- Swedish server for ViaPlay, etc.
- Launch the channel’s website or app.
- Stream the 2020 EHF European Men’s Handball Championship wherever you are.
While a VPN service will help you get around geo-restrictions, you still need a valid subscription to the channels you wish to access. In other words, a VPN will do you no good if you intend to watch the Handball Euros on BeIN without a subscription to that channel.
We take our time evaluating VPN providers based on certain criteria. We test speeds, security and privacy features, unblocking capabilities, and a lot more.
I recommended ExpressVPN as it fits all the above. According to the tests we conducted, the provider is very fast and comes with a vast server network across 94 countries. So, getting around geo-restrictions is very easy.
As for privacy and security, ExpressVPN has a strict no-log policy, 256-bit AES encryption, a kill switch, and several top-notch security protocols. You can try their service out risk-free as they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Here’s how ExpressVPN fares against other top VPN service providers as of January 2020.
- Best for streaming and privacy
- High speed servers in 160 VPN locations
- Works for Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu
- 24/7/ live chat support
- 3 extra months free on annual plan
- UltraHD streaming
- Free Smart DNS proxy
- Unblocks all major streaming services
- Limited Time 72% Discount
- Unlimited VPN connections
- Over 1000 servers
- Ad-blocking feature available
- User-friendly application
- Exclusive Smart VPN feature
- Standalone Smart DNS subscription available
- Extra security features
- Extensions for Firefox and Chrome
- Split-tunneling available
VPN Alternative – Enter Smart DNS Proxy
As effective as a VPN is, it’s not the only method online streamers use to get around geo-blocks. All the VPNs in the table above allow you to use an alternative in the form of Smart DNS.
Smart DNS proxies reroute the parts of your online traffic responsible for revealing your current location to the website you wish to access. By doing so, your IP address remains intact, and your speed doesn’t get affected. A VPN, on the other hand, rechannels all of your Internet traffic and cloaks your real IP address in the process.
Since Smart DNS keeps your IP unaltered, you get to access both your local channels and restricted ones simultaneously. Moreover, Smart DNS can be set up on almost any device, including iOS, PC, Mac, Android, Apple TV, Fire Stick, PlayStation, Xbox, Android TV, and Smart TVs.
As I mentioned, all the VPNs in the table offer this feature as part of their subscription. However, while I was trying out Unlocator, I did notice that they provide a stand-alone Smart DNS subscription, which is a cheaper option if you’re just looking to bypass regional restrictions.
Setting Up Smart DNS – The Configuration Process
Here’s how you can set up Unlocator on your streaming platform:
- First, subscribe to Unlocator. You get a 7-day free trial.
- Follow the setup guides on their official website to configure Smart DNS on your device.
- Once done, restart your device.
- Now launch the channel you wish to stream the Championship on. Please note that with Smart DNS, you only get to unblock what the Smart DNS provider supports. When I checked Unlocator’s supported channels, these are the ones we found:
- ZDF.
- TV2 Play.
- TV2 Sumo.
- beIN Sports.
- ViaPlay.
- Finally, launch your selected channel and stream the 2020 EHF Euro Handball 2020 Championship.
EHF Euro Handball 2020
The competition begins on January 9th, 2020, and wraps up on January 26th, 2020. This year, it’s different. The event is hosted in three cities for the first time. Moreover, the Euro Handball 2020 will feature 24 teams instead of 16.
Sixteen has been a standard number of participating teams at Men’s EHF EURO events since the year 2002. The EHF Congress unanimously voted in favor of a motion submitted by the EHF back in 2014 to make the teams 24 in total by the year 2020.
This is what the motion states:
“The idea of the EHF EURO of/for the entire European handball family is gaining more and more shape. An EHF EURO shall be a festival for all European handball nations,”
The teams have already taken their Group places and they’ll battle it out until they reach the final destination. You can also check out the full schedule of the event on the EHF official website. As for the groups, they’re as follows:
Group A
- Croatia
- Belarus
- Montenegro
- Serbia
Group B
- Czech Republic
- North Macedonia
- Austria (Host)
- Ukraine
Group C
- Spain
- Germany
- Latvia
- Netherlands
Group D
- France
- Norway (Host)
- Portugal
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
Group E
- Denmark
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Russia
Group F
- Sweden (Host)
- Slovenia
- Switzerland
- Poland
Final Thoughts
The new Euro Handball format will feature 65 matches instead of 47, played over 15 days. This means you have a lot of handball action filling your January calendar.
Where will you be watching the Handball Euros from and which team are you rooting for? Share all of your predictions and thoughts about the new format in the comment section below.