Cycling fans in the United Kingdom and Ireland will no longer be watching races on Eurosport, as coverage is set to move over to TNT Sports as part of an integration between the two Warner Bros. Discovery-owned channels on February 28th — the move means those wanting to watch professional cycling will now have to pay for a “premium” £30.99-a-month subscription.
There will be no loss of rights as a result of the change and all races previously broadcast on Eurosport will be available on TNT Sports and streamed on discovery+. It means — aside from ITV’s final year of Tour de France, Critérium du Dauphiné and Paris-Nice coverage before Warner Bros. Discovery becomes exclusive rights holder in 2026 — all men’s and women’s Grand Tours, plus in excess of 300 days of cycling action across the year will soon be broadcast on TNT Sports in the UK and Ireland.
Most notably, however, is the price hike. The discovery+ premium subscription with TNT Sports costs £30.99, significantly more than the previous £6.99 monthly subscription that cycling fans could pay to watch Eurosport. What’s more, the premium subscription can only be paid monthly, at the £30.99 rate, meaning 12 months of cycling viewing will soon cost nearly £400 (£371.88).
When news broke in the autumn of Warner Bros. Discovery’s deal for exclusive coverage of the Tour de France from 2026 until “at least 2030”, it raised concerns the race would not be shown on free-to-air television in the UK for the first time since the 1980s, potentially closing an accessible route for new viewers to discover the sport.
With today’s announcement, TNT Sports has insisted it will bring “a strong free-to-air offer” to “broaden reach and increase exposure for cycling”, including daily free-to-air highlights on Quest for the Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a España, as well as Paris-Roubaix this season.
However, the broadcaster has not disclosed any plans for 2026 when ITV will no longer show live coverage. Speaking to figures at TNT Sports, road.cc was not told directly of any free-to-air plans for 2026 but the broadcaster did explain how a free-to-air “proposition” will be delivered sooner to the time. TNT Sports said it could not confirm yet what this may entail as it is still a way off and production plans are being worked out.
The broadcaster was keen to highlight its hope that it can create new cycling fans by airing races on channels adjacent to bigger sporting events, such as Premier League football matches, albeit those viewers would still need to have bought a subscription to see it.
While that may not allay concerns about one of the UK’s most beloved televisual sporting traditions of the summer coming to an end this year, the “strong free-to-air package” TNT Sports is promising includes a new weekly cycling show on its free channel Quest. ‘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”.
TNT Sports has also promised an “increase in free-to-air highlights across men’s and women’s major races” in 2025 and confirmed that Eurosport would be continuing elsewhere in Europe.
For the cycling fan already subscribed and watching races on Eurosport, not much will change in terms of the actual cycling content. There will be a few new additions, but the content watched previously on one channel will simply move across to TNT Sports, and it will still be streamable on discovery+.
TNT Sports will air in excess of 300 days of cycling coverage across the year and has added the women’s Giro d’Italia to its rights, meaning 100 per cent of the UCI Men’s and Women’s WorldTour will be broadcast.
Of those races, TNT Sports has exclusive rights for 33 of 36, the three exceptions being the Tour de France, Critérium du Dauphiné and Paris-Nice, which will become exclusive after leaving ITV this summer.
Scott Young, Group SVP, Content, Production & Business Operations, for WBD Sports Europe, said: “Combining Eurosport and TNT Sports content in the UK and Ireland will enable us to offer a single, premium viewing experience for sports fans. This move in the UK and Ireland will also continue to best deliver value for our leagues and federation partners, as we continue our 35 years plus commitment to investment and championing of sport on our screens, which remains a fundamental part of the success of grassroots through to elite.
“TNT Sports will also continue to bring more content to fans on Warner Bros. Discovery’s free-to-air channel Quest. In 2025, this will include broadcasting every MotoGP Sprint race, adding to existing live Bennetts British Superbikes coverage, a brand-new weekly cycling show covering all key moments of the season, continue highlights of the Giro d’Italia and La Vuelta a Espana, plus premiere a range of new sports documentaries.”
All Eurosport’s digital offering, on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms will continue, just rebranded as TNT Sports Cycling.
TNT Sports also says it will help grow grassroots cycling through a new cycling club competition that will see the winner receive financial investment after a public vote during the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes.
The announcement Eurosport, now TNT Sports, would be the exclusive broadcaster of the Tour de France from 2026 was met with disappointment in many quarters from those upset by the loss of free-to-air coverage of the world’s biggest bike race.
ITV commentator Ned Boulting was one of those disappointed and told the road.cc Podcast the audience on free-to-air “completely eclipses subscription television” and bemoaning that “the Tour is going to go into a place where, in the UK media landscape, you normally find biathlon and hockey”.
That last comment may no longer apply, the Tour de France and all other bike races to appear on TNT Sports channels adjacent to Premier League football, cricket, rugby and its other sports, but Boulting concluded nobody is to blame, just that “not enough of us cared”.
“It’s nobody’s fault. The ASO have a right to monetise their event as they feel fit, and you cannot blame Warner Brothers for wanting exclusivity,” he said. “That’s their market. It seems quite strange to me that for a long time they were willing or contractually obliged to share the coverage with a much bigger broadcaster. Why would they allow that to persist?
“And from ITV’s perspective, if they’re losing money, they’ve got to get out. So none of these three parties, in my opinion, are to blame. But the primary reason why it’s gone is because not enough of us cared.”
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
83 thoughts on “TNT Sports to put cycling behind £30.99-a-month paywall, as Eurosport coverage to end and future of free-to-air Tour de France remains unclear”
If I understand correctly
If I understand correctly from the email, my £3.99 subscription, which recently went up to £6.99, can continue but will include adverts but no cycling unless I upgrade to TNT Premium (which they neglect to mention the price) and appears to cost £30.99.
I do love the increased level of choice that this free market economy is giving us!
Any ideas on what I can spend the extra £3.99 on each month?
Yeah, I’m not sure this is
Yeah, I’m not sure this is (as the article suggests) as benign as just a rebrand. The small print here suggests that your two options are: £3.99 for a package containing naff all; or £30.99 for the sports package… which still has adverts.
So an extra £24/month for a worse service
I cant see anyone paying 30
I cant see anyone paying 30.99 per month to watch cycling content, and it’s not even guaranteed to be on the broadcast channels which are full of repeats, it’s stream it on your tablet/device.
Suspect WB will quickly find the UK market isn’t as robustly willing to sign up to this as they think
I was told by Discovery that
I was told by Discovery that my subscription couldn’t continue and I’d need to change my subscription to include TNT sports without any explanation or detail about what I would get. But I’m not comfortable paying the increased costs, I had already unsubscribed from the Eurosport package during the off season and had only just resubscribed to see the Tour Down Under but this is forcing me to give it up entirely. I have also given up zwift, and veloviewer subs thanks to the cost of everything else going up.
Absolutely disgusting!
Absolutely disgusting!
I actively avoid watching Football and do not want to support it in any way whatsoever. Even the Discovery+ thing wrankled a bit after GCN+ but I’m not up for the best part of £100 to VM + a further £30.99 to be able to watch on demand.
I do not want to HAVE to support the overhyped primadonnas that have ruined Football with all this falling over. For the price of one Wendyballer you can get a whole World Tour Team!
This is extremely
This is extremely disappointing news. When considering our Sky package recently one of the things that kept us going was Discovery+ being bundled in. At the same time we looked at dumping SkySports for TNT and decided against it due to the offering on TNT not appealing.
I keep reading articles in the press about people streaming illegally being arrested by the police, but I can’t help thinking a move like this is only going to encourage more people down that path.
I saw a quote elsewhere attributed to the group senior VP of WBD Sports Europe, which just made me laugh. “There is going to be a price rise for this premium sports channel. What we’ve looked at is creating value for money, taking the most premium sports properties as possible and creating the adjacency, creating a sports ecosystem where you get value”.
So, enjoy your new sports ecosystem and marvel at the value you are getting….
Whatever happens, I am not
Whatever happens, I am not prepared to pay any further subscription costs. There is so much cycling on telly, that I get bored watching it. Most stages of the TDF are pretty dull (apart from the scenery) until the last hour of racing, so hopefully highlights will remain free to air. I cancelled sky sports several years ago and don’t miss it.
Fuck that.
Fuck that.
Not only a basic shit sandwich, but the way it’s disguised in the email from them as somehow a better deal for me make me want to puke.
US discover time warner masters have gone for the money. I think they’ll get a shock.
Sorry Orla et al. I’m out.
If this is the way the license holder chooses to profit, bring on OneCycling, at least I’d know there was some benefit to teams from a price gouging subscription fee.
I believe this is purely profit motivated by DTW.
“The primary reason why it’s
“The primary reason why it’s gone is because not enough of us cared”
Great thanks Ned, just blame the audience (i thought the highlights show got good figures) not the people making vast sums of money out of it.
So long Eurosport, it’s been
So long Eurosport, it’s been a blast.
And the bird to WBD, not that they care.
Well colour me shocked, it
Well colour me shocked, it was only a matter of time before greed got the better of Warner Brothers. Asset stripping at its finest, don’t you just love capitalism? Oh well, a year to brush up on French, Italian and Spanish and to install a good VPN to watch the GTs in their native languages. ETA and/or checking out the availability on P2P streaming networks, which generally one would regard as being morally dubious but in this instance I’d say Warner Brothers have stolen something from viewers who were prepared to pay a reasonable price and are trying to blackmail them into paying five times as much, so they deserve all they get.
Sod this. Sod you Warner Bros
Sod this. Sod you Warner Bros. Sod you Scott Young, group senior vice president of WBD Sports Europe and your ridiculous justification. Bring back GCN+
Another one that just won’t
Another one that just won’t be paying nearly £400 a year just to watch the cycling. Sure, I’ll get a lot more for my money than cycling, but I’ve no interest in tennis, golf or the world tiddlywink championships, so it’ll be a goodbye from me, and will WBD care, no. They know the money is in fans who just can’t live without their football, rugby, F1 or whatever and are mug enough to pay through the nose to see it. Even then cycle sport viewing number just aren’t in the same league the big guns and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they dropped broadcasting it completely at some point in the future.
The Wiggo bubble has well and truly burst.
I didn’t realise that
I didn’t realise that Eurosports still covered tiddlywinks. To be honest it has all been downhill since they stopped showing belt sander racing
Totally bonkers but an
Totally bonkers but an absolutely brilliant idea. Bring it on.
Ah well. Lets hope the next
Ah well. Lets hope the next cycling rights deal implodes for the ASO when TNT claim there is no market.
Common sense will no doubt return after a couple of seasons of revenue failures by TNT.
Just nipped over there to
Just nipped over there to cancel my subscription and to bid them a fond farewell…
I’m with you on this one…
I’m with you on this one…
…the ONLY time I 100% agree
…the ONLY time I 100% agree with Rendel.
How nice of WB. I have just
How nice of WB. I have just cannceld my subscription and it pops up telling me “You can get 7 months at 50% off, so ONLY £15.49 a month. THEN £30.99 of course!
This wonderful offer to did make me stop walking away.
Another here who is
Another here who is cancelling their subscription. I’ve had it for years, only watch cycling on it, nothing else. I refuse to pay a 450% increase, just to watch cycling.
The price hike from £6.99 to
The price hike from £6.99 to £30.99 is way too big.
Ha, I won’t be paying that
Ha, I won’t be paying that for anything covered by TNT. Their football coverage is woeful. The level of greed from companies is appalling.
I’d paused my subscription
I’d paused my subscription over the winter, and with the start of racing down under, was wondering when to resubscribe – opening weekend and Milano – San Remo can’t be too far awat. The answer now looks like it’s going to be never. Could I afford £30.99 a month – yes, potentially. Would I do so, absolutely not – this is attempted extortion. The GCN+ sub always seemed a bit too good to be true, discovery+ was reasonable, but a price hike of nearly 5 times that is insane. Yes, I’m sure I would get more ‘content’ available, but I’m not interested in that whatsoever.
I liked the presentation with Orla, Dan, Adam and co, enjoyed Rob Hatch and tolerated Carlton, but I refuse to be held hostage to WB’s exclusive control over pro cycling coverage. I’d be surprised if they don’t lose a very large proportion of their existing customers. It looks like it’s back to trying to find streams and torrents of cycling coverage 🙁
Same here, £6.99 was
Same here, £6.99 was reasonable but a jump to £30.99 is an absolute joke, like you yes I could afford it but it’s the hike in price that sticks in my craw.
So let’s see, if you’re into
So let’s see, if you’re into sport and you have a family who like a bit of TV…
£100+ a month for a reasonably full service on Sky
~£50 a month for Netflix, Apple, Prime, Disney, Paramount…
~£31 a month for TNT
Add your broadband at £20-50 a month.
Have I missed anything? Oh your TV licence as well. And they wonder why dodgy services on Fire Sticks are all the rage
Yes you forgot the £169,50
Yes you forgot the £169,50 license fee…. thats the only entertainment subscription I have along with ROUVY
From across the North Sea,
From across the North Sea, here in NL I pay about 90 euros/month for a decent TV/broadband bundle, and 19 euros/month for HBO Max + sports package (14 + 5 euros). Plus a few other bits like Viaplay (football and F1), Netflix and Prime. I think the killer is the way that things are being “bundled” for our “convenience”.
The only positive I can think
The only positive I can think of is that someone at WBD thinks cycling is a sufficently ‘high profile’ sport that it needs elivating to the same broadcasting status as Premier League Football, and presumably they think us mugs will pay through the nose to watch it. I’d love to think that’s true, but it ain’t.
The Manchester United FB page has 84m followers. I’ll say that again 84,000,000 and the MU Channel 213,000 members, (and remember that’s just one of twenty premier league teams). Cycling just can’t compete with those sort of numbers and when the extra sign ups at nearly £400 a year don’t follow, some bean counter somewhere will say, no, it’s not worth it and that’s that for broadcasts cycling.
Or someone at WBD has noticed
Or someone at WBD has noticed the insanely high prices of bikes & equipment, and has guessed cycling fans can afford a huge hike in subscriptions.
Don’t think so, if you
Don’t think so, if you translate the word salad Young delivered, they’re talking really about making fans of football,MotoGP etc into cycling fans to boost their viewing figures presumably
Because ad revenues for cycling are low based on the current setups, yet cycling consumes such a gigantic amount of the schedule in comparison.
I dont think they care at all for the existing cycling fanbase, or just assume youll go with price rise regardless.
I think what you say has some
I think what you say has some sense to it (for WBD).
More sports, for the die-hard “Watch any sports” fans but also for their football-centric viewers, to try to justify the price to them, in the face of their weak, but over-paid, UK football rights.
Like for that handle alone!
Like for that handle alone!
Okay, so we’re being asked to
Okay, so we’re being asked to pay £31 a month to watch cycling, but where is the money going? With football I know a lot of the big TV money goes to pay the inflated wages of the stars, but some of it does filter down to the grass roots of the game.
Anyone know ASO / UCI or whoever are getting out of it and where’s the money going?
The UCI gets11.82% of the
The UCI gets11.82% of the total prize fund for the Tour, which was about €270,000 last year, and that goes to the riders’ union. ASO make an estimated €30 million profit on €150 million turnover for the Tour and as far as I know that goes nowhere but into their own pockets. So it would seem very little of the TV profit goes back into the sport at all, and none down to grassroots level.
Thats interesting if correct.
Thats interesting if correct… a massive failure of the UCI…say compared to the FA… or UEFA….who at least funnel token amounts down to grass roots afaik.
The FA might though its a
The FA might though its a fraction of a fraction of the money they generate, not convinced UEFAs money goes anywhere but Swiss bank accounts…where their hq is based of course
Rendel Harris wrote:
Well, yes, but (acc. INRNG) those pockets are then steadily emptied by all the other races they run, which pretty much all run at loss.
The £31 isn’t what we pay to
The £31 isn’t what we pay to watch cycling. It’s what they want us to pay to watch a football package, which has some cycling thrown in for free.
It’s mad: we will refuse to pay a four times more to watch cycling, so they will lose our business, and the football fans won’t even notice that they’ve gained cycling.
It is a UK-only move (for now
It is a UK-only move (for now). Sorry to say, but it’s hard to see what the *sponsor- and advertiser-relevant* demographic is that’s going to be too upset by this. The people they care about (i.e. the not-real-cyclists demonised by the comments section under the road.cc review of any expensive new product) will pay the fee – it’s just another box to tick along with all the other monthlies and to put it in context, a brand new pro-tour spec bike is going to cost the equivalent of 20-40 years of TNT subscription.
Full disclosure – before I retired I would have upgraded. Now I’m thinking VPN might be the new TNT.
I think you are
I think you are overestimating the size and influence of the demographic in question. Its more to do with the 31.99 subscription covering a huge range of non-cycling demographics in which cycling fans are bit-part players.
I don’t like it, but look at
I don’t like it, but look at it from WBD’s point of view. They want to cut costs / consolidate their offering. If 80% of people cancel their subscription, but the subscription costs 5x as much, they’re subsciption revenue flat.
Then their advertising agencies ask “Who are the 80% who no longer see our client’s advertisements? Will they be interested in finance software, executive saloons, fancy kitchen appliances and business-class travel?”, to which the honest answer is “some of them might, but most of them are complaining to their mates on the club run, watching the classics round their well-heeled mate’s house or crying into the opinion pages of the Guardian.”
Same Q&A for the ProTour teams really. Which jersey sponsors care?
One answer is raise taxes and have the BBC cover minority sports on a plethora of channels, but I can’t see Rachel Reeves putting *that* too high up the to-do list …. a better answer is just to tell WBD that a condition of their license to operate their subscription service in the UK is that some of the content is free on a streaming service after n days where n is to be agreed?
The Beeb have plenty of money
The Beeb have plenty of money to cover any sport they wanted to, they choose to for example spend 1million per year hiring one person to host a sports show, they chose to spend 110million for just 2 Olympics worth of coverage, they chose to cut 35million from the sports budget, they choose to spend around 40million a year covering Wimbledon.
They chose to spend 86million rebuilding the Eastenders set.
I don’t know what metrics (if
I don’t know what metrics (if any) the BBC governance model solves for; I suspect there aren’t any. Eastenders definitely gets a viewing figures tailwind for just being on BBC1 in the early evening slot, but does get decent iPlayer numbers. I would imagine on a 10 year view, the cost per viewer hour still represents “value” even with the new set factored in.
The Olympics and Wimbledon have some sort of special status which protects them from economic reality. At least partly because they’re watched by people who don’t watch other sport and have never participated in the sport they’re watching (there’s probably a green in a RAG box on a scorecard somewhere for that).
Secret_squirrel wrote:
This is my frustration with the service, you’re not paying £31 for a premium service for the sport you want to watch, you’re paying £31 for a load of very mediocre services. Since it looked a good year for MotoGP last year I decided to pay for Discovery+ and I was very disappointed with the experience for the high cost, it feels more like a cheap terrestrial streaming service with a badly functioning app and adverts in the content.
I suspect though they know they can get people like me to pay way over the odds for the poor service in desperation to watch a particular sport although I don’t think I’ll be subscribing again unless they offer a cheaper MotoGP only package ore similar which I can’t see happening.
I wonder how much value Jim
I wonder how much value Jim Ratcliff views the UK market for INEOS? They have not won much since he took over from Sky and seem to be in a right mess. Too many good people gone, but at least they have unbound themselves from some overrated road cyclists but will it be enough?
Going to miss the ITV comps
Going to miss the ITV comps to win a high end road bike….and some lycra kit
Four hundred quid a year for
Four hundred quid a year for just cycling which is the only sport I watch online is too much I’m afraid. I’ve cancelled my Discovery+ subscription.
Wait till after the CX worlds
Wait till after the CX worlds maybe ?
stonojnr wrote:
I did hesitate over that but you get whatever’s left of your current month when you cancel so have it to Valentine’s Day (oh God, what am I going to do Valentine’s Day if there’s no cycling to watch?).
on youtube live
on youtube live
After GCN+ went I was
After GCN+ went I was unprepared to pay for Discovery+ let alone this obscene amount for TNT. This is 10x the price i paid for GCN+. Ridiculous. I enjoyed watching ITV’s Tour De France coverage, I know many criticise it, but for free to air it’s great. Putting the rights completely behind a very expensive paywall is a good way to kill the sport. Dumb, greedy, short term thinking.
Go brush up on (or learn)
Go brush up on (or learn) your French, Italian, Spanish and/or Dutch, and use a VPN to watch your cycling. Belgian telly – VRT.be – is particularly good for cycling, and NOS in the Netherlands aren’t bad either for things like the Tour, so knowing Dutch goes a long way. The Tour de France will always be free to air in France – it’s the law! – so France 2 and 3 should always have it.
We’re back to the dark ages as far as cycling coverage goes in the Celtic Isles. Never near complete to begin with, but at least there was always good Tour coverage with Imlach & Co. on C4 and later ITV, but now… It’s VPNs.
Maybe one day the cycling authorities and orgs will learn that selling TV rights to big corporates that want to just lock it up to squeeze as much cash as possible out of the tiny minority that can afford stupid fees is bad for the sport overall. Till then.. VPNs.
I can watch the Tour de
I can watch the Tour de France live on France TV but I much prefer to switch to ITV. David Millar has an ability to describe the race tactics that brings the whole race to life. Another reason to prefer ITV is the one hour evening show which allows you to catch up on the day’s action; France TV doesn’t offer any highlights.
In theory satellite coverage will allow you to receive French TV channels in the UK. You need a viewing card, available for a nominal, one-off payment but the card is only delivered to addresses in France. I suppose it will always be possible to buy cards on the black market but how many people in the UK these days have the ability to follow a broadcast in a foreign language?
I currently get D+/TNT as
I currently get D+/TNT as part of my BT broadband package. I doubt that package will survive into 2026 without a substantial price hike, or they’ll ditch TNT/D+ (which only came about beacuse TNT was previously BT Sport before they sold it to WBD). At that point, I’ll go for a cheaper BB package and abandon cycling TV coverage – along with many others, I suspect.
Cycling on TV has never been more than a minority interest in UK; that’s why ITV is not prepared to stump up the cash to continue live coverage of the Tour. As Ned said, not enough people cared. WBD will ‘discover’ that a whole load fewer will care at £370 a year. My big concern is that this will feed into a growing anti-cycling sentiment in this country. If it’s not on TV, it’s ‘obvious’ that no-one cares about it so why indulge it in normal life?
Marginally better: if you are
Marginally better: if you are an EE Broadband customer, you can go for the £20 TNT Sports package, which the D+ Help Chat has told me will include the cycling content (although not sure if it’ll be ad free though). It’s still a bitter pill of a price hike though from £6.99.
VPN and figure out where
VPN and figure out where stuff is on all the way. SBS in Aus for the Tour/Giro/Vuelta and a bunch of other races, UCI YouTube has shown the CX World Cup and will be showing the worlds (English commentary for both these). Then the aforementioned VRT, France TV, RAI etc will get most of the rest.
Since GCN+ got yanked, I’ve actually watched more races this year than probably forever – free but for the VPN cost and that gets a lot of other use anyway.
I wonder if this money grab
I wonder if this money grab is partly due to WBD having recoup the money they spent absorbing BT Sport and all the rights contracts that they massively overpaid for, which might explain the UK & Ireland specific move.
It seems there’s a missed opportunity here, now that linear TV is on the way out, individual sports & events can be shown on their own stream, without having to take up space on a channel schedule. Surely a better approach would be to offer a “pick ‘n mix” subscription, where one pays an amount based on the sports they want to watch, for example, if you like cycling and UFC (“it’s a type of full contact combat, popular in the USA, m’lud”), that’s £xxx per month, add on MotoGP and Formula E, that’s £yyy a month. The only people I know who pay the full TNT Sports sub do it for the association football, with everything else thrown in as a by-product. It would probably bring in more revenue than the single “all you can eat” offering.
criminal.
criminal.
…but i just went through the cancellation proceedure on Disco+
which led to them offering the Premium (incl. TNT Sports) for £15.49p/m for the next 7 months.
still a huge hike and only a temporary reprieve,
but at least i can watch the Classics and cross fingers they’ll amend their business model before the end of the cycling season?
if they don’t – it may be the death of cycling in the UK.
The only way you will get the
The only way you will get the prices down is to boycott the channel. For the sake of 1 season, just cancel your subscription or just don’t sign up to begin with. When WB-Discovery realise no one is paying to watch they will lose so much money from subs and advertising they will have no choice but to abandon it. Vote with your feet / remote control.
They need to realise this isn’t premier league football. It’s not week after week of top games that attract swathes of fans. You will get the hardcore element who like to watch every race or every kind, but most people will watch the TdF and a few classics and world champs. I don’t really think many people are going to subscribe to watch a race that takes 3 weeks and watch every minute, let’s face it, cycling isn’t a thrill a minute sport. A good mountain stage will only really catch my attention in the final hour or so, classics I can take or leave. Mostly only the monuments. The small numbers of hardcore fans us t enough to support the channel going forward.
It’s a sport I love but it’s ultimately dull for long periods. Watching 60-70 riders soft pedal through the French fields of sunflowers is like watching paint dry. I’d not subscribe to anything which can really be more watchable in 30 minute highlights on an evening.
In fact if I didn’t get to see cycling at all I would be disappointed but I’m really not going to bother my arse to subscribe to see it. Even at £3.99 I wouldn’t bother. Many might say the era of Pogacar is exciting, I find the current era a bit dull and predictable.
So if you want it back you can either pay the obscene money or take a deep breath and just say no. Go ride your own bike instead. Its free.
Smoggysteve wrote:
Your full post describes very well why the current model isn’t viable. Not enough people watching to sell adverts for beer and gambling. Probably not enough A/B1 watching to raise much from premium brands … and a general desire for no adverts at all during the last 25km when the race is interesting. But you’ll only watch if it’s free.
WBD have to pay for the rights to show the races and that has to cover the costs of producing the footage. If fans (you) won’t pay WBD to watch, why should they bother?
panda wrote:
No they don’t. WBD chose to pay for the rights and pay what they paid. WBD choose the resources to allocate to coverage.
It is absolutely not our responsibility to then pay them whatever they decide to charge having established a monopoly. Quite the opposite.
OK – so they outbid someone
OK – so they outbid someone else for the rights on the basis that they could turn a profit by having people subscribe to watch what they do with it – adverts and all.
You (and I, and everyone else) can choose en masse not to pay to watch their package and maybe they lose money, or maybe they make some, but the latter is their strong preference and they have to set their price to maximise that via something akin to the Laffer Curve.
If you don’t like that they have a monopoly and their pricing model doesn’t suit you (it doesn’t suit me either – I don’t want to watch other sports) then it’s not WBD you have the problem with – it’s capitalism. Probably the wrong comments section to be picking that apart!
For what it’s worth, I think they’ve made a mistake and there’s a way of offering the Cycling only outside the bundle at a lower price with a low marginal cost which makes more money for them. Something not unlike GCN+. I doubt very much that they did all that much due diligence
panda wrote:
Of course it’s not. Don’t you know this is the communist wokerati of the Evil Cycling Lobby around these parts?
You need to watch cyclocross.
You need to watch cyclocross. Maximum 1 hour of racing. Awesome edge of the seat stuff (especially when MVP isn’t riding).
I’ve watched it plenty, it’s
I’ve watched it plenty, it’s one good rider vs dozens of average ones. Not a thrill a minute sport
A very strange pricing move
A very strange pricing move by WBD. But surely they must believe they have data that shows whether anyone was desperately wanting to watch £31 worth of sport yet only paying £7.
Not me, I only re-subbed in November for the Cyclocross peak, and was already planning ending it after the 3 months – I was never willing to pay even £84 a year.
I’m just glad that WBD have
I’m just glad that WBD have committed to maintaining the ski jumping coverage on Eurosport, to satiate the national fervour around the sport since our last “success” story, err…
*checks notes*
…36 years ago.
Was £7 too cheap? Maybe. I’d
Was £7 too cheap? Maybe. I’d have accepted maybe £12-15. It’s a niche enough sport that I know there are a few eyes to cover production costs, but if the question is over £15, my answer is “reduce production costs” (sorry Orla and Adam).
I had been optimistic that GCN+ and streaming-first delivery might have been the start of a viable micro-model of niche(ish) sports being offered at prices that reflected costs and targeted ads etc without the noise of the monolithic subscription and cross-subsidies. It seems the opposite has happened.
If it genuinely needs £31 per person to make it economically viable, the business model is fucked anyway. I honestly don’t think there’s a big overlap between the high cost football/rugby/motorsports crowd and cycling. Not enough to make cycling fans say “great, footie” when considering the cost. Basically, this feels like a miscalculation by people who don’t understand their demographic.
Except for the Orla & Adam
[quote=espressodan…, my answer is “reduce production costs” (sorry Orla and Adam). [/quote]
Except for the Orla & Adam show (which is Quest so dips into a different budget) Eurosport have very little production costs. They buy in the TV feed from whoever, don’t do any editing, their commentors work from ‘booths’ at Paris HQ, (though they all probably work from home now) and they don’t have their ‘on site’ reporters like Ned B does for ITV4. Even the highlights are just reruns of the last hour, mistakes, loss of TV feed and all. Frankly it’s already done as cheap as TV broadcasting gets.
For things like the Tour of
For things like the Tour of Croatia maybe, but for Grand Tours or the classics, they’ll have Jens, Flecha & Hannah on the ground interviewing riders, providing race updates, sat on a motorbike. They then top & tail the broadcast from Discovery’s studios in London, do the tedious breakaway & someone has to edit the highlights together with their comm team. They’ve moved on from the early Eurosport days for sure.
I agree that it was cheap. I
I agree that it was cheap. I only signed up to Discovery for the cycling, mainly the spring classics and Cyclo cross. I never watched anything else on it. To be honest I would’ve happily paid £10-£15 a month for it. This is taking the piss at £30.99, I have no interest in any other sport so why should I have to pay for the football? I am cancelling my subscription, as others have said they immediately offer a 50% discount for six months. That would take it to what I would pay continuously, do I take the six month offer so I can watch the remaining cross races and spring classics? Or do I tell them to stick it?
unsure as yet.
This is ridiculous. The money
This is ridiculous. The money won’t go to cycling it’s just to fill a black hole that is football. TNT are competing with Sky Sports in the UK&I and that platform is 99% focussed and aimed at football, with anything else a bit part.
theres a reason I never subscribe to Sky sports as I have no interest in the over inflated rubbish that irks football, but it’s their be all and end all.
its pathetic that TNT are trying ti say you are getting all this extra, that the cycling watcher isn’t interested in and you won’t get football inspired fans suddenly wanton to watch hours of cycling.
its a total sham and I hope it fails miserably, but in all honesty are the cycling watching numbers going to make a difference if they don’t subscribe, answer is no as it’s all a smoke screen
Getting sense of Deja vu here
Getting sense of Deja vu here. Goodbye Cycling, I fear in my life it’s going the way of US Pro Football.
Back in the 80’s I became a massive “Redskins” fan off the back of Channel 4 coverage but it gradually tailed off after all its moves and changes. I now look back on that as a bit of a golden age but can’t bothered with the current state of the game. I see my obsession with Cycling and the Tour (which started about the same time, again thanks Channel 4) going down the same path.
Having mulled this over for a
Having mulled this over for a bit, my thoughts are that this is unlikely to be about simply rinsing cycling fans for more cash, it will be about realising cost savings (to generate greater profits) by condensing channels / offerings. Cycling fans, like the fans of many other sports covered on Eurosport, will simply be collateral damage.
I should imagine the fringe nature of many of the sports covered on Eurosport make it a hard advertising sale. So, whilst the historic economical production model pre-Discovery meant the channel washed its face, when factoring in larger corporate costs, shareholder returns etc. it doesn’t pass muster infront of the finance team now.
I can imagine that the accountants will have done their homework and know exactly what the drop off rate will be – significant – and have proceeded on the basis that even the worst case scenario (reference unsubscribers) will still leave them financially better off. I can imagine they have already planned phase two as well, where, with demonstrable lack of specator interest, they negotiate better terms for broadcasting rights and manage to make even more cash… you gotta love the big corporate / capatilism machine!
I agree with some of the
I agree with some of the sentiments here, goodbye to watching the Tour, they were making huge money with ads, they didn’t need to go to pay only to watch. They already had horrible presentation of it from the commentators on up.
I stopped watching football and basketball due to the crappy announcers, and they took the fun out of the games, celebrating in the endzone, or taunting a quarterback after a sack is crucial to a game of physcological warfare, it also made the game fun to watch; basketball went through similar changes.
No thanks, good bye, good riddance to the Tour, don’t let the door hit it in the arse.
The whole point of investment
The whole point of investment in a scalable broadcast platform is that it enables many channels/subscriptions that target both well known and niche sports that are the maximum potential opportunity. The efficiency of the platform makes those niche sports viable, which they wouldn’t be stand alone. If that wasn’t true, platforms like You Tube wouldn’t make a fortune from mainstream up to specialist content creators on their platform.
Bundling everything together in a single high cost package is not understanding the platform and how brands work. BT Sport was a worked example of how not to, and now Warner are determined to make the same mistakes.
That’s a straight No Way…
Another sad day for cycling
Another sad day for cycling fans. I was sad to see the demise of coverage on GCN, but bought a subscription to Discovery+ to continue watching, but there’s no way I’m paying TNT’s prices. End of an era!
TNT Thats expolosive!
TNT Thats explosive!
Have to ride my bike now! instead of watching it, Thanks WBD for getting me fitter.
Another one bites the dust at
Another one bites the dust at the hands of the uber-wealthy corporates. The price of everything, the value of nothing.
Who, in their right mind, is
Who, in their right mind, is going to pay over 30 quid a month for the witterings of Carlton Kirby? #blessingindisguise
Is anyone else here from
Is anyone else here from Ireland? I (in the ROI) have had the Discovery+ subscription since July last, and haven’t received any notice about the change to TNT. On my account information I have the option of a year’s subscription for €49.99 (monthly €4.99). It actually says that TNT is not available to customers in Ireland. Previously, I’d tried to use our subscription in NI, as I used to be able to do with Eurosport (even post-Brexit) but get a message that my account can’t be used in the UK (and there’s a note in our account details that I can use it throughout the EEA). So, am I tied to the UK (with this crazy price hike) or am I not?
Cancelled my sub immediately.
Cancelled my sub immediately. It’s an example of the audience is the product, as with social media: TNT+ will have ads despite the £31pcm and we are being packaged up with Eurosport/Discovery viewers to be sold as an audience of 123 eyes with XYZ demographic.
Sad thing here is of course not the impact on us whiny roadies (we can ride our bikes and/or VPN around the paywall if we can be arsed) but what this does for cycle sport in the UK if it has no visible, verifiable “reach” and there is no value for domestic sponsors. I will still ride my bike but will domestic racing and int’l racing in the UK (and thus support for young and upcoming racers) go down the shitter?