We are about to enter the planet of giants! The best and most competitive basketball league is about to start! Fortunately, if you don’t have a cable subscription or satellite TV, you can use several devices and online channels to watch the NBA live on Roku and similar set-top boxes. In this guide, we will tell you how to do it.
The never-ending thrill of professional sports
Sports are one of the most exciting activities to perform. To thrive in the professional, or even the amateur world, you need talent, discipline, and make more than enough sacrifices regarding time, effort, and resource investment. Only true warriors can say they have had competitive careers.
However, practicing professional sports is not for everybody. For the rest of us that didn’t make, or that didn’t pursue a career at the highest level, we enjoy watching these giants compete against each other whether it is live at the venue, or via television (cable, satellite, or online streaming.)
NBA: the world’s premier basketball circuit
The National Basketball Association, shortened to NBA by its initials, is a professional league that gathers the most talented players in the United States and the world. There are both American and Canadian teams (the Toronto Raptors represent the latter group.)
The 2018-2019 season will start on October 16, which is less than ten days from now. Fortunately, you will be able to watch the NBA live with Roku, if you can set up your location to appear in the United States of America (which is where most channels that stream the league’s best games are.)
With LeBron James switching teams and joining the Los Angeles Lakers, the Golden State Warriors’ hold on the title seems stronger, especially if new free agent signing DeMarcus Cousins can return to full health before the playoffs. The Cleveland Cavaliers seem a lot weaker than the previous year, but other forces are emerging in the Eastern Conference, namely the Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics.
In the Western Conference, the Warriors and the Houston Rockets seem like the favorites to go to the NBA Finals, but the Lakers deserve attention as well. They plan to content as soon as this year thanks to the addition of James, the available cap space to sign another max contract in 2019, and the development of young stars like Kyle Kuzma, Josh Hart, Lonzo Ball, and others.
Roku: the ticket to online streaming and entertainment
In the same mold as the Amazon Fire TV, the Apple TV, and other similar devices, Roku is a digital media player produced and developed by Roku, Inc. Its partners offer over-the-top content via online channels.
Its name is a Japanese word that means “six,” because Roku was the sixth company that Anthony Wood founded. Roku has been in the market since 2002 and is now one of the most prominent streaming products available in the market.
Roku performs its magic by receiving data, which is the video streaming signal, thanks to wired or wireless Internet connection from a router. The data is then output via an HDMI connector, or an audio or video cable.
The content available in Roku is offered by Roku partners, which are channels that users can enjoy online. They can add or remove them in the Roku Channel Store.
VPN, spoofing technology at your service
The thing with Roku channels is that they are geo-restricted, as are the vast majority of online services and pages. To gain access to more channels that are off-limits in your location, you should use a Virtual Private Network.
VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, are your unconditional allies if you want to watch the NBA live on Roku because they can provide you with more options if the place you live in doesn’t have enough alternatives. They are apps or clients that encrypt your shared online content and reroute that information, along with your IP address, to remote servers, away from Internet Service Providers, hackers, censorship, and IP-recognizing pages on the web.
VPN apps and services are known around the web for providing privacy, anonymous browsing, and security. However, the reason why they are so popular is that they help users enter blocked international content.
Since the NBA is an American league, most of the channels that broadcast live games are in the US: the NBA League Pass, PlayStation Vue, Sling TV, Hulu Live TV, and Hulu TV may be accessible for you if you implement a VPN service and hide your location, obtaining one from the service’s host country.
TorGuard is one of the most influential and efficient VPN brands in the industry. It has more than 3,000 servers in 55 nations around the world, and together with top encryption, a fantastic customer service, and affordable prices ($10 per month,), it is one of the preferred options for users looking to watch the NBA live on Roku.
How to set up a VPN on Roku
- Roku doesn’t come with enabled or built-in VPN functionality, so you will need to set up the encryption protocol on your router. By doing that, any device that connects to the router’s Wi-Fi signal will be protected by the VPN.
- If you want to access US-based content (which is the one that can show you the most channels with NBA lives games), you need to configure your router with an American IP address.
- You need to set up a Virtual Private Network in your VPN-enabled router. The instructions will depend on each brand, but it is a fairly straightforward process. Here is a video that shows you how to connect to a VPN router.
To connect your Roku device on your router:
- Access the Roku’s menu.
- Go to Settings.
- Then, access “Network.”
- There, select Wireless (Wi-Fi)
- Go to the Choose your Network screen.
- There, choose the VPN-enabled router you configured earlier
- Write the password of the router.
- Hit Connect.
- Done! Now your Roku streaming device is connected to your VPN, and you will be able to unblock international content, including NBA channels.
In conclusion, it is very straightforward to watch the NBA live on Roku: all you need is a version of the digital media player, an Internet connection, a router, and a VPN account. The latter will help you manipulate and spoof your location to access more channels on Roku.
