“A huge problem”: Pro cycling disappearing behind £372-a-year TNT Sports paywall a “huge shame”, Tao Geoghegan Hart says in lengthy post questioning “how many people have cancelled subscriptions” over price hike? + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Watching cycling on TV in the UK — what's changing and when?
Here’s your 60-second cheat sheet for everything we’ve learnt this week.
TNT Sports is closing Eurosport down in the UK and Ireland, integrating all the channel’s content onto its main TNT channels. As a result, cycling fans will no longer be able to simply purchase the cheaper £6.99 monthly subscription to watch racing and will have to buy a £30.99-a-month premium discovery+ sub.
That £30.99 is a monthly fee and there is no annual or six-month savings available either. In short, if you want to watch bike racing it’s going to cost £371.88-a-year. That’s considerably more (443 per cent more, in fact) than the £83.88-a-year your old £6.99 sub would have cost. Oh, and that’s before taking into account you could get it cheaper buying an annual pass or via various promotions.
Eurosport will be integrated to TNT Sports on 28 February, after which point the channel will close in the UK and Ireland, although it will continue elsewhere in Europe. TNT Sports says the move is about consolidating all its sports content on one platform, making it simpler for viewers and growing smaller sports by broadcasting them adjacent to larger, more popular sports such as Premier League football fixtures. TNT also believes it will take cycling coverage to the next level.
The bottom line for fans who only want to watch cycling is that for the same races (bar the women’s Giro d’Italia which has been added to TNT Sports’ rights for 2025 and wasn’t previously available on Eurosport), you’ll be paying a hell of a lot more to watch them.
In 2025, ITV will still have its free-to-air coverage/highlights of the Tour de France, Paris-Nice and Critérium du Dauphiné. After this year, Warner Bros. Discovery has exclusive rights to those races and they’ll be on TNT Sports.
When pushed on if there will still be free-to-air coverage of the Tour de France after 2025, the TNT Sports figures we’ve spoken to haven’t given much cause for optimism, but equally didn’t completely rule it out. A free-to-air highlights package seems the most likely option, although TNT Sports says it is too far in the future and production plans haven’t been finalised. Given this week’s price hike, they’ll have to forgive cycling fans for assuming the worst on the free-to-air front.
Warner Bros. Discovery also owns Quest and will be putting some free-to-air content on there, including highlights of the Grand Tours and Paris-Roubaix. There is also to be a new weekly cycling show. ‘The Ultimate Cycling Show’ will be hosted by Orla Chennaoui and Adam Blythe and launches on February 27th, promising to cover “key parts of the season” and editorially “designed to cater to the seasoned fan, plus attract and engage new audiences”.
Triathlon specialist Quintana Roo unveils new "all speed" aero road bike — and it's actually quite reasonably priced
If you need to read about a new bike to take your mind off all this TNT stuff…
"Tom's transfer was criticised by some. Now those critics have been silenced a bit": Fighting talk from the Q36.5 ranks after Tom Pidcock's strong start to life away from Ineos Grenadiers
After Pidcock’s stage win yesterday, teammate Frederik Frison had some words for all those who doubted the Brit signing with the second-tier team.
Frison — who we’re contractually obliged to remind you is the peloton’s premier Peter Sagan impressionist, and missed last year’s classics after suffering “quite extensive damage to private parts” in a dog attack — told Het Nieuwsblad the AlUla Tour victory had seen the “critics silenced a bit” after the transfer was “criticised by some”.
Stage three should be a sprint. We’ll bring you anything worth knowing a bit later on once things heat up. For now, there’s about 130km of fairly boring-looking pre-sprint rolling to be done.
Step aside, Paddy McGuinness... man who ran 30 marathons in 30 days in 30 different countries has a new challenge... and it involves a Raleigh Chopper
Mike Humphreys has history with incredible physical challenges and raising money for a great cause, last year having run 30 marathons in 30 days in 30 different countries. Now, once again raising awareness of motor neurone disease (MND) and raising money along the way, he’s cycling to the Alps… on this…
He’s setting off this week and from the anxiety-inducing videos he’s uploaded to Instagram we’re not sure what’s going to be the bigger challenge — the climbing or the descending.
“This is going to be a struggle,” he admitted. “The gear ratio is far from ideal for big hills but I guess a challenge has to be a challenge.”
Good luck, Mike!
The free 'hack' to upgrade Sora to 105
The internet strikes again…
Turn up to school every day and you could win a new bike
One West Midlands school is taking a novel approach to improving student attendance, offering those who maintain 100 per cent attendance or show the most improvement the chance to win a new bike.
The story is up on Stourbridge News, and concerns a competition for two new bikes to be won by students at Pedmore High School (not to be confused with PED more, the words to live by for many in the pro cycling ranks during the 90s).
The year seven to 10 students can win the first bike by maintaining a 100 per cent attendance, or the second by showing the most attendance improvement by the end of the spring term. If more than one student has 100 per cent attendance or is equally improved on the attendance front there’ll presumably be some form of prize draw… or perhaps a hill climb or 10-mile TT to decide the victor? Okay, yep, probably a prize draw.
A whole load of cancelled subscriptions + more reaction to Tao's TNT Sports thoughts
A pretty standard set of responses to anything we’ve put out about the TNT Sports news this week…
Tao asked: how many cancelled subscriptions there have been since Tuesday? The answer to that is pretty unanimous when looking at pretty much any forum discussing the move.
On Facebook, Robin Cooney told us: “We’ll never know the answer to your question, Tao. TNT will not want to admit how they have destroyed our sport by trying to get cycling fans to pay for the football. In your post you also make the same fundamental mistake inherent in the TNT business model by saying ‘Professional sports are all competing for the same audience’. They really aren’t. TNT tried to get more customers to pay for the football by buying MotoGP – UK viewing of MotoGP went off a cliff. I don’t know a single cycling fan that is going to pay £30.99 pcm to watch loads of other sports they don’t care about.”
Jason Porter: “Whether you watch CX, MTB, Road, BMX or Track, for the UK audience & market, this will do irreparable damage to the cycling industry, both from a sales perspective as well as encouraging new people to take up a cycling discipline. Absolutely shocking decision by greedy people who have no interest in the sport themselves. A very sad day for UK cycling fans.”
Graham Martin: “I’ll be cancelling after this weekend’s CX Worlds.”
thetr1ckytree: “It wouldn’t be so bad if it was going to benefit cycling teams and the riders with a huge influx of money like Sky have with football. I think It’s just going to turn it into a niche sport and if anything, financially could get worse.”
Garmin "blue triangle of death" issue solved with numerous fixes... (sort of)
Several models of Garmin cycling computers and smartwatches are facing a bug which forces the device to crash and enter a reboot loop when accessing any GPS-related activities. The tech giant has now published a number of resolutions on its website specific to individual devices, although many users are still claiming the workarounds failed for them. More info here:
Amateur cyclist "breaks record" for annual distance cycled... but mind-boggling total is still 84,000km less than the Guinness World Record
First things first, props to Kateřina Rusá, the Czech cyclist who last year rode 55,555km in a year, improving on her 2023 total of 50,505km. Rusá works a full-time job but still rides every day (in fact she hasn’t missed one since 19 March 2016) and in 2024 averaged six hours 39 minutes riding and 150km travelled A DAY. An incredible achievement.
The only part we’re a bit unsure of and have asked for more info about is a press release that dropped in our inbox from bike manufacturer Festka, for whom Rusá is an ambassador, the high-end bike brand claiming their rider “once again holds the record for endurance cycling”. Now, we haven’t heard a response back to our pedantry, so we’re assuming what it all means was Rusá was the athlete on Strava to log the most cycled distance in 2024? After all, the Guinness World Record for greatest distance cycled in a year belongs to Amanda Coker who rode 86,573.2 miles (139,326.34km) between 15 May 2016 and 14 May 2017.
Now, a calendar year riding in Czechia is undoubtedly less pleasant (conditions wise) than riding from May to May in Tampa, Florida, however if we’re talking about “the record for endurance cycling” in a year, that’s got to go to Coker. Maybe we need to get out more… we’re assuming the record was for distance on Strava last year… or maybe it was Rusá’s own personal record… hopefully Festka will take a minute from rolling their eyes at our pedantry and get us an answer. Anyway, chapeau Kateřina!
Pidcock punctures but keeps race lead as Tim Merlier sprints to second stage win at AlUla Tour
A puncture with less than 2km to go actually meant Tom Pidcock had a relatively stress-free finish to stage three at AlUla Tour, guaranteed the same time as the group he was in, the Brit eased home moments after Tim Merlier had sprinted to his second win of the week.
The finish was however overshadowed by a really nasty crash moments before that video starts, Team Picnic PostNL rider Nils Eekhoff being inadvertently barged off the road and colliding heavily with a lamppost. He’s gone to hospital for further checks. Fingers crossed that’s nothing too serious.
Body Rocket launches the "world’s most accurate cycling power meter" claiming +/- 0.1% accuracy
> Body Rocket launches the “world’s most accurate cycling power meter” claiming +/- 0.1% accuracy
"We are naturally disappointed": Lidl responds to planning refused for new supermarket over fears extra traffic could compromise "abandoned" bike network
Remember this from last week?
Lidl has told the Daily Echo it is “naturally disappointed” by the decision and confirmed it would take some time to review the feedback before considering its next steps. The supermarket chain has not yet suggested if it will appeal the decision.
“We will take this opportunity to carefully assess the feedback as we consider our next steps and look forward to providing the community with an update in due course,” a spokesperson said.
Shimano officially launches entry-level CUES groupsets for drop bar road and gravel bikes, including 9, 10 and 11-speed options "at a reasonable price point"
"Don't believe everything you see on TrainingPeaks"
@teamvismaleaseabike.com don’t believe what you see on trainingpeaks 🇮🇹 #procycling
— kristo jorgenson (@kris.to) 30 January 2025 at 14:03
Kostüme raises £116,000 in crowdfunding investment campaign
Kostüme, the maker of some pretty decent cycling kit (the men’s bib shorts getting a 10/10 review off Jo two years ago), has put 8.55 per cent up for investors on crowdfunding investment platform Crowdcube. At the time of writing, £116,766 has been raised via 54 investors, exceeding the £100,000 target. The share price is £9.29 and along with your stake there appear to be rewards for investing from £200 up to £50,000.
Welsh government could cut cycle lane funding to fix roads, as councillor calls for active travel budget to be diverted in area dubbed 'Pothole Land'
"A huge problem": Pro cycling disappearing behind £372-a-year TNT Sports paywall a "huge shame", Tao Geoghegan Hart says in lengthy post questioning "how many people have cancelled subscriptions" over price hike?
British rider Tao Geoghegan Hart has joined the flood of reaction since TNT Sports announced on Tuesday that Eurosport’s coverage of cycling in the UK and Ireland would be ending and the races would be put behind a premium £30.99-a-month subscription instead.
In a lengthy post on Instagram, Geoghegan Hart wrote: “For those in need of some context, the cost of watching racing has gone from £87 a year to £370. As of yet, I’ve seen little comment from pro cycling itself, especially from the many GB riders whose profiles, families & fans it impacts so greatly.
“Let’s be clear, the sport going behind such a large paywall is a huge problem. Professional sports are all competing for the same audience. Cycling is completely reliant on this audience, it is how teams justify themselves to sponsors spending millions a year. Only a few teams can realistically promise a sponsor to win the Tour, but all teams can demonstrate good ROI when capturing so many eyes, hearts & minds. It’s not only wins that can be of value. It’s the journey & the heartache too.
“I find it hard to believe many fans will be able to justify this increase in costs to follow our races & those of our female colleagues. This is a huge shame. Cycling provides such great entertainment and inspiration to so many. GB fans are living a real high point of the sport. There are so many GB professionals, with Tom Pidcock winning his first race for his new team this afternoon a great example of that.
“To be clear on something that many don’t understand, teams receive zero remuneration from TV rights. What do I want to say? For amateur riders, cycling has become a very expensive sport or passion. Now as a GB fan, following the upper echelons of the sport has also suddenly and massively increased in cost. I think it is now very relevant to realise where this money is going and where it is not. And perhaps to question the monopoly held over the sports UK coverage.
“I welcome all opinions on this and am curious to hear how many people have cancelled their subscriptions. This season I’ll try to champion more accessible media. I’ll remain incredibly grateful to our sponsors. I’ll also be very interested to hear from you all which platforms myself and Lidl-Trek should consider collaborating with. We want and need to remain available to all of the huge 🇬🇧 audience that has been built up over the last 15 years of astronomic success.”
Alex Dowsett replied to post: “Well said.” It also received plenty of support from the fans who commented underneath, one thanking Tao for “sticking your head above the parapet and speaking out” about “cycling fans who will be priced out by this corporate greed”.
Another wrote: “Potentially next year (2026) it will be the first time in 40 years I will not be able to watch Le Tour. How sad is that as a fan of cycling that it has come to this. I could pay the £30/month but out of principle for those that cannot I will not.”
What a week it’s been… and it’s only Thursday.
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Latest Comments
Oh sir! sir! Johnnys riding his bike without a helmet, he’s going to die when he falls off!, Yes what a silly boy he is ! Anyway jump in the car we’re going to be late for school and I hope no one gets in my way especially bleeding cyclists!! I wonder if AI will see what fools we are..
It's more about the nomex suit, car helmet and five point harnesses (with HANS), but "reply" ain't what it used to be...
'Gotten' ? The word is 'become', as in, I have become sick of seeing 'gotten'.
OK, all the stuff I said elsewhere on this thread in defence of helmets, I take it all back. I'd sooner be seen as an anti-lidder than be associated with that heap of steaming ordure.
Exactly my thoughts. A real shame, they're amazing bikes, same as Islabikes. Really sad to hear the news. Having said that, we probably didn't do enough to help them. My son had one Islabike and two Frogs, all second hand that we resold for about the same amount.
I couldn't agree more, and when we have all that everywhere I might think about leaving off the helmet, but until then if I have to share the road with huge fast-moving chunks of metal, many of them piloted by persons of limited intelligence and even less self control, I'm going to keep the lid, which even Burt agrees can "probably" offer some protection from injury.
And the irony is that helmet promotion and mandation kills lots of people and they don't reduce the death rate of cyclists. The benefits of cycling vastly outweigh the risks, and helmet promotion and mandation deter cycling (the only proven effect) so those deterred lose those benefits and die earlier.
I see Mont Pythons upper class twits have been replaced by male anti helmet twits who probably ride under 10000 km/year while wearing bike gloves, ladies bib capris, power meters to register the watts they dont produce ,gps because they are easily lost on a tiny island, a mobile phone to call the wifey in case the ride gets too hilly or wet or fast or windy, all while complaining their tushy hurts. They always ask for proof..you could crash a few times on purpose without and with a helmet and send us the pictures. Do pros complain about helmets?..if you rode in a country with sun you would know that styrofoam actually keeps your head cool.. Ps ice hockey players say they dont need mouthguards..ask them to smile
If it saves one life...
Pro cyclists wear helmets as it is mandated. Before it was mandated, very few wore them. Infrastructure, separation, 20 mph, traffic calming are far more important.
50 thoughts on ““A huge problem”: Pro cycling disappearing behind £372-a-year TNT Sports paywall a “huge shame”, Tao Geoghegan Hart says in lengthy post questioning “how many people have cancelled subscriptions” over price hike? + more on the live blog”
Thanks Tao and Alex
Thanks Tao and Alex
For added context, while this
For added context, while this is the visible aspect for the English Speaking UK market, a review of discovery+ shows that the whole of Europe has disappeared behind a HBO/Max DTW paywall in the past year. It seems only Germany and Italy are left with the legacy discovery+ product. I’d be interested to know what the uptake or impact has been in those markets.
I can comment on that as I
I can comment on that as I live in NL. I took the switch to HBO Max with the sports package (14 euros plus 5 euros). I can stomach it as there is a lot of other content in there for me and Ms. KDee as well as all the sports stuff, including the Dune series. I saw the switch from Disc+ to HBO Max as an OK deal. I did sack off another streaming service to counter it though (Sky Showtime…didn’t really have much to offer but I was getting it cheap).
As a side note, I got an email today informing me that my ViaPlay (football and F1) subscription will increase from 18 euros to 20 euros a month, and now include adverts. Not so happy about that. They say there won’t be ads during matches, but nothing about the F1 races.
What does Tao expect to
What does Tao expect to happen ? Tv companies should just buy rights to show sport and give it away free at a loss ? They aren’t the ones making big profits from this, they’re charging an amount so they stop haemorrhaging money from these crazy deals they sign.
ITV have been cagey on exactly what they did & why they chose not to offer a bid for even the highlights, but Ned repeatedly has suggested the viewing figures simply weren’t there for it to be viable. ie there simply aren’t as many people watching cycling on TV as everyone thinks.
And I think people are forgetting ITV only showed live coverage for every stage from 2010 onwards. Prior to that they showed live coverage at weekends only,with the 1hr highlights, prior to that in the C4 days we just got 1hr highlights.
So in the era 20-40years ago when everyone claims watching the sport on TV inspired them, we had 1hr of highlights of just the TdF, exactly the same as what Quest will be showing in 2026.
Maybe people are being put of
Maybe people are being put off by the formula for showing the highlights show. The Eurosport offering seems to have evolved into 15-20 minutes of talking heads, where Orla gets to show off her legs and, depending on the stage, the last climb of the day or the final romp in to a sprint finish (cue screaming commentator, you know, the one who tries so hard to pronounce Italian words with a bogus Italian accent). Nothing else seems ever to be shown, unless some poor unfortunate comes a cropper on a fast descent and has to be stretchered off. Then you have Mr Stumblegums Kelly who does have a lot to say about the game but cannot seem to ameliorate his impenetrable speech patterns, now that he’s in the international communications business. Oh and by the way Sean, who do you think you are kidding, appearing on the box with a full head of Just For Men at the age of 68? Go silver or go home.
Let’s also talk commentators. Phil Liggett and the late Paul Sherwin [RIP] were always going to be a tough act to follow, but I’m afraid the journalist Ned Boulting’s output is p!ss poor, to put it mildly. Even when he is backed up by David Millar, who seems to be the only person in the whole ITV offering who actually has a clue what he is talking about.
So, in conclusion, will I be spending 31 squids a month for the TNT product? I’ll let you guess.
Spangly Shiny wrote:
It’s the 21st-century now and has been for some years old son, women are actually allowed to wear what they like, in this case when they are performing an excellent job as an enthusiastic and knowledgeable presenter. As for your criticism of Sean Kelly, seriously? You admit he has good things to say but apparently he shouldn’t be saying them in an Irish accent with dyed hair?
stonojnr wrote:
So stop signing the crazy deals. The logic ‘I’ve paid a crazy amount for this monopoly but I’m now going to leverage that to maximise my profit’ is certainly peek capitalism, but I’d say the general reaction to this issue isn’t “it’s good that WBD art doing this, well done for monopolising the rights and then charging us $450 a year”, it’s “WTAF”.
It’s the same psychopathic
It’s the same psychopathic raison d’etre as the shit-stain on humanity who bought the rights to a cancer drug and arbitrarily hiked the cost. I know we’re only talking sports coverage here, but this exactly what anti-monopoly and anti-competitive legislation is meant to protect against.
stonojnr wrote:
Firstly, you’re making a huge assumption that discovery+ was giving the cycling away free at a loss. I was paying my £6.99 a month so I wasn’t getting it free and nor was anybody else. If that wasn’t enough, let the broadcasters explain the balance sheet: if they pay N for the cycling rights and the income from £6.99 a month subscribers who mainly have a subscription for the cycling (they could easily discover this through customer surveys) plus the advertising revenue whilst showing the cycling adds up to less than N, fair enough, raise it to a point where it shows a profit. The fact that the company hasn’t made any claim that they were making a loss on cycling, despite the opprobrium being heaped upon them, leads one to assume that they weren’t and they have simply decided that they can make much more profit from cycling by forcing fans to pay for association football and so on as well, whether they want it or not. Obviously they have decided that more than one in five fans currently on a £6.99 subscription will bite the bullet and pay the £31.99 subscription, thereby increasing their profits. Hopefully, if the road.cc readership is representative of the average cycling fan, this will blow up in their faces.
As for “these crazy deals they sign”, whose fault is that? There isn’t exactly robust competition for the cycling rights in the UK, they could have stood up for the fans and said no, either you keep things reasonable or we walk and you get no revenue at all, rather than supinely kowtowing to the greed of ASO. If you went down the greengrocer’s and found that bananas were suddenly £20 a kilo, and they explained that the supplier had suddenly started charging £15 a kilo wholesale, would you have sympathy with the greengrocer or would you say why on earth would you let them get away with that?
Rendel Harris wrote:
I suspect the road.cc readership is indeed representative of the majority (although there do seem to be quite a few who will use anything that’s free and then get all upset when seed funding runs out, salaries need to be paid and some features stop being free – see also Strava etc). As you correctly observe, all that matters to WBD is whether there’s a minority out there who will pay more and will be of interest to their advertisers. I doubt they know either way at this point because it probably doesn’t matter all that much; the numbers are likely driven by ball sports.
I’d just buy a different fruit, unless I was such a banana fan that I’d cut expenditure elsewhere to still be able to buy them. Eventually the wholesaler would realise that there was a good reason bananas were the price they were before.
This is a different problem. In this case, the greengrocer is just saying “look, if you want bananas you have to buy my mixed fruit box and eat the apples etc or put them in the bin and I’m not reviewing the menu until 2028.” What’s wrong is that there is no alternative greengrocer where one can still buy just bananas, even if it costs a little more.
The situation only resolves when WBD’s data analysts tell them the cycling was a waste of money and they should drop it from the package and let someone else (e.g. a GCN+ model) buy the rights when the current contract expires. Which doesn’t help us during the however many years it takes for them to figure that out, obviously.
No they aren’t representive
No they aren’t representive that’s the point, if they were ITV would have had no issue signing off whatever the ASO/EBI deal asked for to get continued TdF coverage. WBD didn’t bid for an exclusive deal, they ended up with one because ITV let them have it.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Pedantically – more than one in 4.58.
[Though actually a bit less than that if they figure that there may be some people who might have cancelled but won’t now they’ve got the cycling as well, some who aren’t subscribed to either because they weren’t quite sold on just what was on there previously, but cycling will tip them over the edge, etc. Probably not enough to get you to one in five, though.]
mdavidford wrote:
Pedantically pedantically the “more than” to which I was referring was the one, rather than the five, so if they need, as you say, one in 4.58 to break even then they need more than one in five, no?
Rendel Harris wrote:
Yes – I wasn’t suggesting that your > 1 in 5 was wrong, just that it undersells how many of those subscribers they need to convert.
Consider for a moment their
Consider for a moment their price hike means they can absorb a near 78% cancellation rate and still be revenue neutral on subs. That’s how much they value your £6.99.
Sky charge £21,000 minimum per channel per year on their satellite system, Eurosport have 4 channels its basically 100k (you pay extra for good channel numbering) they save per year doing this, that’s how much they value your £6.99.
Just got a “sorry you’re
Just got a “sorry you’re leaving” email from discovery+, with a nice bit of blackmail thrown in (highlighted), if you change your mind you can carry on with ad-free viewing, if you don’t and you try to come back in the future you’ll have adverts. Nice company.
I utterly despise the
I utterly despise the business model where a customer pays to be fed adverts.
If I’m being shown ads, then I know they are recording data about me and what ads I might interact with, therefore my data, and myself by association, are the product in their eyes, and I am not handing over more money for the privilege.
For a customer to be the product is ultimately a conflict of interests.
ROOTminus1 wrote:
Enshittification, again…
I have yet to decide wether I
I have yet to decide wether I will suck it up and pay over £30 for the month of July come 2026. The lower price would have been a definite, computer also needed to run through the TV too. The week off around my birthday on the 10th will be a bit lacking otherwise.
It’s the days when Quest/DMAX don’t even show highlights with no explanation that gets me.
Someone’s even taken some England cricket coverage off the BBC radio too.
Six nations disappearing from free to air is a bit of a kicker, no interest in rugby otherwise.
Continuing coverage of triple crown snooker was confirmed during the Masters.
I’ve got to be honest, I’m a
I’ve got to be honest, I’m a bit of a hypocrite because although I think I would not renew at the new price on principle I do love cycling and also rugby (not just the six nations), fortunately a mate of mine has the full package through his Virgin Media account which allows for two devices to be used simultaneously so he’s given me his password so I won’t miss out…
Birthday week without the Tour unthinkable surely?
I know, but will they put
I know, but will they put barriers to my cheeky month?…
ktache wrote:
According to their website and all the companies that host them, you can cancel TNT sports subscription anytime no strings attached so nothing to stop you opening one for a month as far as I can see.
I am spamming teams and races
I am spamming teams and races with my cancellation notice. If more do this, pressure might build via sponsors. How much more unattractive to sponsors is the Tour of Britain going to be now?
Sadly, team sponsors are a
Sadly, team sponsors are a long way down the pyramid of power here, as they get no TV money for races. Look to race organisers instead.
Sponsors’ brands appearing
Sponsors’ brands appearing positively on TV infront of the people they want to appear positive to is what they are paying for (in theory – in practice it’s often personal vanity by a CEO). The number of UK viewers who will see their logo just dropped making them renewing their sponsorship less likely – assuming a) they are being economically rational and b) they care about the people who cancel their subscription.
I don’t imagine the ProTour team principal sponsors care at all (especially the sportswashing ones) so I don’t see them being the source of pressure.
And – frankly – I’ve no idea what would be in it for a race sponsor now. UK race organisers must be putting their CVs together.
Because of the coverage of
Because of the coverage of the 100 on the beeb I have started to eat pombear crisps, and indeed enjoy them, though the change from cheese and onion (green bag, thank goodness) to cheese alone was a tad disappointing.
I spent a while Googling
I spent a while Googling pornbear until I realized ktache was writing about pombear. When I realized it was pombear I kind of lost interest.
Terry Hutt wrote:
I suspect that many viewers
I suspect that many viewers of D+ will be like me and not an active subscriber yet…just waiting for the annual trigger point to start the monthly sub again (for me, it’s something like Tour de Provence). Hence, the impact to subscriber numbers will only become apparent in a few months time. I certainly won’t be paying a large sum of cash to NOT watch sports I have no interest in.
With Eurosport disappearing
With Eurosport disappearing from Sky packages I’m assuming they will be passing on that presumed cost saving to their customers….
Paying the extra money to watch a multitude of one day and stage races during the season is one thing, but when you get to the winter and it is just Cyclocross, your fee per hour of tv coverage becomes extremely expensive!
It’s going to be like the
It’s going to be like the friends episodes where they jump on their neighbours cable connection, just updated with VPN. I’m already learning Italian and okay with french, I’ll watch them in any language as I refuse to give money to these faceless multi conglomerates. Worst is it’s happening under an apparent ‘socialist’ government.
It’s the newly emerged female pro cycling of course that will ultimately suffer as we on average have less expendable income as it is, and the sport is largely dependent on us to watch it.
SarahKC wrote:
Don’t think they’ve got a lot to do with it – pretty sure there’s no golden share in Warner Bros Discovery.
mdavidford wrote:
Don’t think they’ve got a lot to do with it – pretty sure there’s no golden share in Warner Bros Discovery.
Plus I’m pretty sure that Labour has purged anyone left of centre by now anyway…
brooksby wrote:
The 3 part Simon Schama series that was on has never been so timely, culture being art, music or sport has served as a common bridge in a increasingly tribally divided UK in past and most of it has been demolished from Cameron onwards (which as an artist I know all to well). Not much in UK to be cheerful about these days, removing affordable sports coverage is just another nail in coffin it seems (not just cycling, as tennis fans not happy either) and not great in a country that really needs to get people on bikes and out of cars.
Not sure there is anything
Not sure there is anything ‘socialist’ about Labour.
I was a bit miffed when the
I was a bit miffed when the UCI moved the MTB coverage rights from RBTV to Disco+, but I wasn’t too upset as it meant all the cycling coverage was in one place, and who knew, maybe extend the GCN+ app to cover GMBN side of things, that could be cool.
Hahaha, no. How could I have been so naive?
Disco+ almost immediately axed their ties to PlaySports Network and now, 24 months later, are furthering the deluded mindset that kickball must be only “sport” and anything else must be eliminated.
Just because the rabid tribalism, which birthed such notable moments in history as the Hillsborough disaster and the hooligan scene that was so pernicious for nearly 30 years, runs rampant in football to the point that the zombie hordes are deluded into funding tax evasion and money laundering schemes to the tune of £billions, does not mean the followers of every sport is prepared to shell out such extortionate amounts.
If the money went back into the sport, I’d be prepared to pay *some* more than I currently do, but I’m not paying *that* much, especially just to line the pockets of a shareholder of a telecomms conglomerate.
/rant
If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to cancel some subscriptions, and to don a tricorn hat and hoist the skull and bones flag to watch episodes of Mythbusters
You a Sun writer? Rabid
You a Sun writer? Rabid tribalism wasn’t responsible for the Hillsborough disaster. Poor policing and management of the crowds, including stadium design were. Pretty poor statement there, victim blaming 96 people who lost their lives. And I’m not a football fan, btw.
I can see why you drew that
I can see why you drew that conclusion from my comment, but I assure you I have no sense of blaming the victims at Hillsborough.
The fatal incompetence of the police and crowd management was a direct response to a small minority of persistently violent hooligans.
In my view, the thugs and the police hold responsibility for that day.
The point I was making was that hooliganism is the most extreme outcome of the tribalism synonymous with football, that sense of isolationist comeradery which the football “fandom” industry exploits to the extent it has and now expects every other sport to bow to.
Ref TNT subs, I would be
Ref TNT subs, I would be interested to see a price comparison with other European nations (and wider if possible) are paying to view cycling.
You can understand things like Premier League football costs differing, it is after all our national league. I expect prices to view if to be different than other nations but cycling is a worldwide sport. Most of the teams and riders and not British. If anything British involvement is at a lull after the previous 15-20 years. No Cav or Froome and its golden years of British involvement has gone.
So why are the UK fans expected to pay far more for the same events than other nations who probably have many more or their nations athletes competing at a high level? I bet Belgium, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark or Slovenia are not being asked to pay so much to see their top riders succeed .
https://www.glasgowtimes.co
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/24897300.several-cyclists-hit-cars-concerns-raised-following-tragic-death/
Won’t be holding my breath over Police Scotland doing anything about dangerous drivers. They don’t care about cyclists, pedestrians, etc. as long as drivers can get about with ease that’s fine by them.
I live in Renfrewshire, I
I live in Renfrewshire, I never venture anywhere near Glasgow when out riding. The roads are atrocious and so is the quality of driving. I’ve had two close calls and both were in Braehead. As you say, police couldn’t give a flying F. Not had any other issues anywhere else. Thankfully there is lots of decent countryside for me to stick to instead.
If you can be bothered to
If you can be bothered to engage with the Discovery+ “Help Centre” chatbot for long enough they will eventually offer a reduction to 15.99/month for just the next 7 months. I told them they could put that where ” the sun don’t shine “, but it may be of interest to some….
I’m not clear about how this
I’m not clear about how this will impact / be implemented for those who buy Disco+ through Sky?
Sky are still advertising Disco+ as part of the £15/month tv package. It expressly mentions TdF as a highlight of the sub.
24 month contract term at fixed price. Still being advertised tonight.
thax1 wrote:
I was wondering that too, and found this on discovery+ website:
That post from Tao was
That post from Tao was illuminating. Surely Cycling has got to be the only professional sport where the teams dont get a cut of the TV coverage?
They should organise their own races and start boycotting the likes of ASO and the UCI too if they get in the way.
Pssst……KodI/kodi build/
Pssst……KodI/kodi build/ VPN. I’ll get my coat!!
Well, if we get Quest
Well, if we get Quest highlights, not quite so bad. I really only watch extended highlights anyway, it’s like watching paint dry otherwise. Although, sounds like it’ll only be grand tours and selected monuments which would be disappointing. But it’s still extortion for the full monté.
A VPN is pretty handy for
A VPN is pretty handy for watching sports from other broadcasters. I get the commentary may be in a language other than English – which can be a barrier for some.
I cancelled mine last night.
I cancelled mine last night. I was offered an ‘exclusive’ offer of seven months at £15.49, then whacked up to £30.99. I replied that I would happily pay £15 a month just for cycling but it fell on deaf ears.
They will be surprised at the amount of people they assumed would subscribe who don’t.
We have a Virgin broadband/TV
We have a Virgin broadband/TV pakage that includes the TNT sports channels. In principle I would cancel but there are 5 other people in our household who would moan if other channels in the package were lost as a result of my cancelling as a matter of principle. (Sorry).