How to Stream World Cup from the US

Ian checking in here from Craftsbury. I have gotten numerous requests from family, friends, and skiers alike on how to watch the World Cup from the United States. So without further ado, here is how to stream the World Cup from home. 

While some World Cups are streamed on NBC through the NBC Sports Gold package, its heckin’ expensive, mostly time delayed broadcast, and often doesn’t have commentary. Your best option is to use NRK, Norwegian’s government owned TV channel. As nordic skiing in Norway is football to America, they will always guarantee the World Cup will be broadcast. You can even watch rollerski racing in the summer if you’re into that sort of thing. Another option is Eurosport, but you have to check the schedule as skiing often gets kicked to Eurosport2 in lieu of soccer and for some reason, billiards. With Eurosport, you get English commentary, but it’s often pretty clueless or intensely focused on the 3 British skiers in the race. There was a famous time the Eurosport commentator saw a Norwegian athlete attempting to double pole a classic course and went after him calling it “a terrible decision” and “the smaller arm muscles will tire out more quickly than the legs”. However, as the star British skier Andrew Musgrave came by double poling the same course, the commentators went absolutely gaga for “his courageous choice” and “the power and endurance of his upper body”. So yeah, get used to hearing about “Muzzy” if you go the Eurosport route. 

With our top choice NRK, the streaming is free if you are located in Norway, thus, you will need a VPN (virtual private network) that essentially tells the internet you are somewhere else. If you have the dough, there are numerous VPN sites you can use that you can get a yearly plan. For those that want a FREE VPN, I would recommend Hola. It gives access to all locations free, but only for 1 hour. If you run out of time, just use another device (roommate’s computer) and you’ll get another hour! Additionally, Hola has some pretty good deals for premium unlimited access right now. 

1. Download the FIS Ski app on your mobile device. The night before the race, you can check the Live Events tab and see when the race is starting as it adjusts for your time zone automatically. Additionally, you can follow along the live splits if someone you want to watch is not on the TV. 
2. Download Hola Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hola-free-vpn-proxy-unblo/gkojfkhlekighikafcjkiklfbnlmeio
3. It will install to your Extensions bar, so drop down the menu and turn the pin blue to pin it to your search bar.

4. Go to: https://tv.nrk.no/direkte/nrk1. Click on the little flame smiley face in the extensions bar, change your location to Norway. You will have 1 hour of streaming once you do this. Again, you can use another device and get another hour of streaming if you run out of time. Or you can switch over to Eurosport. 

To watch Eurosport feeds, you do not need to use Hola VPN. Here are some I go to. 

• http://freestreams-live1.com/eurosport1/
• http://time4tv.stream/watch/sports/eurosport1.php 
• https://freelivesports.co/eurosport/ 

Sometimes it is on Eurosport 2. If the race doesn’t show up on Eurosport, try these. 

• http://freestreams-live1.com/eurosport2/
• https://time4tv.stream/sports/eurosport2.php

Some of the Eurosport streams, you will have to click out of some ads. Don’t worry, I’ve been streaming off of 3rd party sites for years and have yet to get a bad computer virus. Watching World Cup from the US requires some creativity and determination to find the right stream. If you don’t get it at first, just type in “watch world cup online free” into google and click around. I usually stumble across one at one point or another. Again, getting a VPN and watching on NRK is your best option. 

I hope this helps! Happy cheering from afar!