How Warner Bros is destroying British pro cycling
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- Warner Brothers just announced a massive new paywall to watch pro cycling on TNT Sports in the UK.
Owen investigates and explains what this means for the British pro cycling scene and what the future holds for grassroots and elite cycling in the UK.
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We cancelled the TV licence, sky and everything. Greed Greed Greed. Pick up a few bits on TH-cam and ride my bike more often.
I'm not sure that cancelling the TV license is the right move to protect free to air content. TH-cam just needs to enshitify the non-Premium experience to the point that you part with 10-15 pm, and then you're back to square one. FYI I'm a premium subscriber
@aglees2b why? If you fit the criteria for not requiring a licence why buy one?
@@madplanet3351 fair enough if you never want to watch live sport or other programmes
Make sure you declare you don't need a tv license. not had one for 8 yrs, never pestered as I did it properly. Others I know get letters alot.
Same.
WBD will discover cycling fans aren't "soccer" fans
It’s football, not soccer. The majority of the world call it football.
@@ZeJoker-u4u oh, then that would explain the scare quotes, wouln't it? WBD is an Amerian cooporation with no interest in what the majority of the world calls it. The comment is a commentary to that.
@@ZeJoker-u4uJust speak for yourself coz in my side of the world, SEA, it's "soccer".
Football and soccer were both used to describe the sport in the UK up until the 80's
@@ZeJoker-u4u ... and?
I would pay a reasonable price to watch cycling but have no interest in other sports which most of the £31 would account for , so I'm out
I’ve been a Eurosport subscriber for years, just to watch cycling. £31 a month is something simply not going to happen.
If we had stayed in the EU this couldn't happen without a challenge from the Monopolies Commission. Brexshite voters caused this.
@@Demun1649 It's closing in Ireland too.
Never thought I'd see someone blame this on Brexit, lmao.
@ Moderately surprised someone hasn't blamed Trump.
@@Paul-tp9vf Those of us who know it is down to him, don't need to mention it. It is rather like London in 1940, the Blitz. We know it was all down to Herr Schicklegruber, but we don't talk about him all the time. It's like, no one, in their right mind, ever mentions Das Fuhrage when we discuss Brexshite, we know who The Evil One is.
This is exactly how PIRACY starts!
People genuinely do not mind, in fact we are willing to pay a FAIR price for the things we love. When you ramp it up this much, so so many will convert to piracy to watch the sport.
Hence why piracy rates dropped so low during peak and reasonable Netflix times. Now that it has ramped up or too many others have joined the market, entertainment is too expensive so piracy goes up again.
Hoping that someone will find a pirate way of watching and I'd have no qualms about it whatsoever.
@@mikeevans1952bro just use tiz cycling
I’ll happily pirate as well if they’re charging this much.
EXACTLY THIS! So many more people would subscribe, rather than pirate, if it was in any way affordable.. some people I know almost exclusively watch football (as an example) on dodgy links and share these about readily.. even as professionals with decent jobs; adding £20-30 per months PER SERVICE! Just isn't feasible.. especially as they're spread across 15 different providers.
Like a hacked firestick you mean?
I got into cycling sports because of my partner. He watched the Tour de France, Giro Italia and so on. I got engaged by watching it with him and learning to enjoy the thrill of the racing and learning who did what role and why. I would never have gotten into it and supported it if it wasn't for him and the Freeview coverage. I am devastated that they have made it so expensive and we will not be watching it this year. Will have to see what scraps we can watch on TH-cam etc. It's a sad year for cycling fans in the UK. 😕
It's still available on ITV 4 this year
@@ridley8340 I forgot that we have one year left, then it is all gone after this season. Thank you for reminding me! A small silver lining.
Tiz always alternative solutions
Nothing beats the feeling of snoozing on the sofa at the weekend with the tour on after a big ride in the summer.
Apart from snoozing on the sofa at the weekend with the Spring classics on after a big ride in the spring!
Cycling + Soccer + Cricket + rugby = £31 per month. 95% of this cost is to cover the astronomical cost of the broadcast rights of soccer + rugby + cricket. A tiny, tiny part is the cycling. Fine if you like soccer and cricket. If you don’t, then you are effectively subsidising soccer and cricket for the masses and you are paying a crazy amount for the small part of TNT you do actually watch.
It’s football, not soccer. The majority of the world call it football.
@@ZeJoker-u4uI still just about understood what they meant...
I'd be very surprised if the Rugby rights are worth even 20% of the football rights.
Exactly. When BT Sport started BT used its huge football bid to justify grabbing more money from all its customers, whether they were into sport or not, without so much as asking first. This is WB doing the same with all fans of other sports, forcing them to subsidise increasingly ludicrous football bids. Cycling was clearly doing just fine when fans paid £3.99/month, and that covered loads of other smaller sports. WB could have kept the two tiers separate if they intended to keep fans and benefit the cycling world. Instead they're going to kill interest in it just to pay footballers millions.
Even as a football fan, the coat of watching it is absurd. And it's not as though it's all on one or the other.. it's spread across at least 3 different services!
I’ve cancelled my Eurosport+ subscription a year ago, when they ditched the yearly price and in the proccess they hiked the price around 4x times.
It’s disguasting what a cash grab the service has become under WBD!
They are Yenghi, what do you expect?
It really feels like this was why they had anti-trust laws.
And why the ENGLISH voted to leave the EU, so that the EU antitrust laws could not be applied here. Brexshite voters caused this.
Average person in a few years: "Cycling? What cycling? The Tour de France is still going? Wow"
😂 😢
Average person in the uk. The world is more than just the uk. Here in continental europe we pay only 5 euros a month to hbo to watch every cycling race you can imagine without commercials
Perfectly described. I for one am done, after 40 years following cycling sport
Then watch Speed Down.
Agreed, I think I’ll ride my bike instead.
Warner Bros may put one of the last nails in. But British pro cycling has been on a steady decline for quite a while.
I feel cheated £29 a year to£84 a year and now 360 a year , all this in 2 years it’s just not right
This all applies to Ireland as well. It was free to air cycling in the 80s that made me a fan, watching my childhood heros of King Kelly and Stephen Roche in the biggest races across Europe. I love watching road and cyclocross to this day and didnt mind paying the GCN+ subscription as it was good value. When that went i switched to D+. I will be cancelling that sub today which means no live cycling for me and even worse, no free to air live cycling to inspire the next generation of kids. Such a shame.
Will Tg4 still have coverage of the Grand Tours.
@@Lisanisky good question tbh, I don't know.
Yes Tg4 will have the TDF live only for this year and the same as the womans tour ,but it finishes this year
Thanks. Also Irish. Was curious about where we stood. Going to have to learn some Flemish or something instead of Gaeilge😂 I should not laugh. This whole thing is a travesty. There were will be no more Sam Elliots. Cricket in England has no future for the same reason. Its trajectory is now cycling’s.
When gcn+ went, WBD excluded any of their downstream proxies from any southern hemisphere subscription or streaming. So in Australia, we now get nuthin', Local broadcasters cover the handful of biggest races, otherwise Euro viewing has gone (I guess a few are crazy enough to hand over their gold to flobikes, who mostly geoblock us). Sucks big time from this side of the world.
Stan Sport splash page claim they will show UCI races, not confirmed it yet
This decision will also cut deeper as well ! Bike sales will plummet even further as will accessories & clothing sales. Cycling magazines are now ridiculously expensive so they too will be affected. I am guessing most of us would of been willing to pay £10 pm but no way can most of us afford what they want. The only bonus tome is that in the Spring / Summer I will now be getting out on my bike more.
Agree, about £10 has to be the maximum the majority will pay through the cycling season
Great video with true content. I've boycotted American cycling products/companies for many many years. You have to BOYCOTT AMERICAN CYCLING COMPANIES/PRODUCTS. As a Canadian; here we have been going through this over-pricing gouging for many years. We live next to the worst "We Want Money" country in the world and it is spreading world wide. I find that many American companies want to take over and buy out other companies because they see the chance to gouge people out of their money. The massive money that these companies are making go mostly to the top share holders and top management, the sick greedy people, they don't care about the common folk. F'-ing American companies taking over and buying up everything, it's all around you. I'm a veteran serious cyclist. Many years ago with my cycling club and other cycling clubs we focused on European and UK products, we followed the European and UK race scene. GCN sold out to an American company, look what happened to them. My DNA is in the UK and Europe.
Remember, Disney is owned by King Charles. Yes it is referenced as an America icon but, it’s a foreign entity which does not pay American taxes and all the businesses it owns, and property, are under their umbrella. You also would want to look at who is also part of Disney, WB’s and others investment portfolios. You would see big pharma is another driving force of the price increase, look at ask the ads aired during races, as healthy people do not need their products. Collectively, it’s an attack on multiple levels with many players from all over the world and not just “one” person, one company or one country.
In 2025 there are more reasons than ever to actively avoid doing anything that will benefit any USA company!
The cycling organisation is also to blame..how much would they take to kiill the sport? They are responsible for growing the sport
Grow or die. They are choosing death.
Thats just what the UCI/Aso etc understands under „growing“. Making it mainstream means making more cash. They want to make it an entertainment for average joes.
Cycling as a sport was better off when it was called niche sport.
Than this Netflix Bs started off besides some other stuff.
If you are interested just look what happend to the NBA, NFL etc in the last lets say 15 years.
Underdogs are not wanted anymore, instead every game needs to be a Happening. Just like the Tour morphed the last couple of years. No boring stages allowed anymore and if possible as much stages have to be won by some superstar.
THEY want this. And thats the reason some „Superstars“ and Superteams do things which are not humanly possible and they still get not busted or even questioned by the media,…
On principle I have cancelled. Its market domination and profiteering without understanding the audience. It is not customer centric at all and not value for money as we have limited time to perform hobbies , watch cycling go to work etc so where is the value if we only have time for one of the sports. This will also impact the cycling market bike sales, aftermarket upgrades as the enthusiasm of the big races will drive some uplift in these sales. I would have been prepared to pay slightly more for a pick and mix offering allowing cycle races, documentaries like the GCN+ offered but this is a step too far.
Get a vpn you’ll find it for free, if you set it to Australia for SBS coverage
Thanks @Moradude99, I've just linked into Woolloomooloo in Australia on my VPN and there's all sorts of cycling stuff on SBS, and presumably the Tour and the Giro etc live. Phew!!! I would have SO missed watching cycling as (being a pensioner) I just can't afford £31 for TNT/Discovery.
just don't forget to delete your browser cookies before logging in each time
Some, maybe you don't realise how much racing is out there that SBS does not cover.
@ im good, I only look forward to watching Flanders and Roubaix, most of the rest of it,I find is a great afternoon snooze aid.
I'm hoping someone will do a video showing how to do this...I'm going to try to contact Doc Squiffy he may be able to work it out.
One way to fight back is just to cancel, which I have greedy yet again.
This is true, if no one subscribed, they'd have to back down and hopefully walk away. There'd be a dent in cycling, but it would recover.
Unfortunately there are plenty of people who can afford to pay the increase and even if half the current subscribers cancelled Warner would still see at least a 180% increase in revenue from those that continue.
One thing to say though is that the current greed to sell viewing rights without any possibility of allowing any free view is so short sighted, it will kill the sport. Who is going to sponsor the teams in the future with a massive reduction in global exposure. no money going in, lower wages for cyclists... you can see whats going
to happen
They are all owned by Warners, so no one is leaving anything. TNT is hosted on the Discovery app already. They have decided to end the arrangement of peeling of the cycling coverage and offering it at a very reasonable monthly cost. Personally, I'd go up to fifteen pounds a month for year-round cycling coverage, £31, nah.
You already had all year around cycling, for £11
@@KPierce-b7l GCN+ and then when it closed, Discovery+, were £6.99.
It's an insane jump up in price, especially when you can get all of Sky Sports for around £20/m through Now (if you cancel after a month and take their pleading offer). If the £6.99/m could cover cycling, snooker, motorsports, Olympics, winter sports and loads more, they should have just kept that tier separate. Instead they've clearly overpaid for the football and are desperate to claw it back at the expense of all other sports and their fans.
I remember when this happened with cricket. Everyone at our club cancelled their service then when the World Cup was on they all pitched in and hired a cheap hotel with fox tv for a week
I don't understand why the monopolies commission hasn't stop this
Lol maybe shouldn't have left he EU
@hestefar2 🤣 if only cyclists had voted we wouldn't of 🤣
We don't need the EU to make our own laws, we will find that out shortly after the duopoly is ousted.
@@FredFox-m9v Yeh, but you need a lot of money to lobby parliament.
How come there is only one monopolies commission😂
within precisely 4 minutes of recieving the email regarding the price hike, I cancelled my subscription. It's ironic that just yesterday they send me a link to a survey about with questions like 'would you recommend us to a friend. You can guess my answer..
Its not just cycling... theyve done the same thing to British/World superbikes!
Short-term gains at the risk of the long-term health of the sport? Sounds like the US Cycling scene. And how did that work out for us?
The loss of the Tour Series on TH-cam sucked, and having no National Champs CX *sucked* this year. I hope the scene can survive though. You're doing amazing work! Hopefully will see you at some of the races in Leics
The TDF will still be the largest event, in the world, with the largest, physical, live audience. You can still go and watch it for real. But, because of Brexshite voters, it will cost you more.
@@Demun1649 I've been to the Tour both times it's been to the UK in my life, standing at the side of the road is great but you have zero idea what's going on just following PCS livestats on your phone, so you still need the live coverage and highlights once you get home.
@@MxCrab Only twice? Watching the Tour on TV is like watching motor racing, or the gee-gees. You only see the front. Being there you see the whole field, and there's always the newspapers, that give the whole story, the very next morning at breakfast. If you only ever go to the same places each time, you have not been to the Tour. You follow the Tour by upping sticks and moving to the next stage, every day, all the way. And why only twice? It is like going to Paris, but never on the Quatorze. Like never seeing the Defile de Paris.
@Demun1649 the tour has only come to Britain twice in my life, I've never been to see it in France and maybe never will. If I was going that far to watch a race I'd go to Roubaix or Flanders. Also, following the race physically is even more expensive than 30 quid a month...
A few years ago I saw the Vuelta in Andorra - got there early, got a good spot on a steep hill switchback and saw every pro cyclist - famous or not, twice and close up as they came struggling past. It was a great day. We only knew the race was approaching coz we could see/hear the TV helicopter. Peter Sagan was struggling that day but the Yates brothers were on fire! I got great photos of everybody as they were literally no more than an arms length away. We had our Isle of Man flag out and the Garda motorbikes kept stopping by us asking about the TT. Even the TV moto's got us in shot so we made it to the evening's highlights show on ITV4. I've seen the Tour de France twice - was at the finish in St. Jean de Monts when Merckx was racing back in 1972- it was fantastic as they raced (sprinted) up and down the promenade by the beach.
Is anyone organising physical protests? Warner Bros. headquarters is in Chiswick Park, London. How about some demostrations there? Or even better, any celebrity / media events that Warner Bros. organise or have a stake in, such as film premiers? That at least might get some wider media coverage of this.
Both my wife and I are out. We won’t pay this amount. GCN was perfect, backed up by ITV. And they’ve ruined it. Saying that, recent performances by certain cyclists lately has made us question what we’re seeing anyway. A severe sense of deja vu. This decision by Warner has made up our mind for us.
This really sucks. I am living in the Netherlands, and we at least have the public broadcaster show the better part of the TdF stages.
However, in the last 2-3 years, I enjoyed watching cycling on my own accord online. The transition from quite cheap Eurosport player to the somewhat expensive (12 Euros?) Discovery plus did suck. And I am afraid of what there is to come with this precedent of "generalization" of what people can actually subscribe to in the UK.
The insanity and gaslighting that the CEO goes through in his statement of this change is ridicolous.
Same thing happened in Australia with the closure of GCN+, however luckily for us a free to air channel SBS Australia has picked up the rights for some of the major races but apart from that there's nothing.
Eurosport doesn't exist as a standalone app any more in Europe. I was considered subscribing using our Dutch friends' details and viewing via a VPN, but it turns out that it's now being bundled in with an expensive 'entertainments' package across all of Europe, just as is happening in the UK.
Like many other of the comments below. I cancelled my discover+ £31 is just beyond what I'd spend a month.
They did offer me a half price TNT for the next few months, but decided against that as well.
The US system = unrestricted capitalism = the dark side of capitalism, in which the MOST important objective is to make money, then make more money and so on... The only thing that could halt this cycle (excuse the pun), is regulation that oversees and restricts unrestricted capitalism from harming the interests of those in society.
It's really David Lappartient and Christian Prudhomme who decide (and pocket the rights)...
Exactly. I don’t blame WB as much as i blame the administrators who determine where the broadcasting right go
It is Sky and Brian Cookson that started the "British" the sport by turning it into formula one...
I'm so glad we got to see Sir Cav make history while we could. RIP UK Cycling!
What you've not mentioned is that on the mountain bike side, Warner Bros has bought the company that organises the races, so they're now event organiser and broadcaster. This has let to the change of the sport for easy TV - shorter races on shorter courses. Some classic downhill races (like Fort William) have been excluded because the course is longer than three minutes, so it's harder to show every run in full for the top 30. Fields have been reduced too, so that only the top stars can make it. You could argue that this kind of top-to-bottom coverage is making things better for fans, but it's making courses more average and it's limiting the number of racers at the top level. This is creating a kind of Premier League where only the top-funded teams can afford the top talent and the ability of grassroots riders to rise up the ranks is very limited.
What Warner Bros doesn't seem to understand is that 98% of all cyclists got into the sport because we were rubbish at team sports - finding cycling gives you a sport you can do where you don't need ten friends. You can do it on your own or with one or two of your other dysfunctional friends 🙂
Which is why most cyclists tend to love cycling and just cycling... They're not into US-style 'sports' where it can be college basketball or top-level American football and people will watch it. Unless it has bicycles (or at a push, wheels in general) we're not interested...
In Central Europe, a Eurosport online subscription was 25 EUR per year between 2022 and early 2024. From 2024 they increased it to 5 EUR per month (i.e. 60 EUR per year), a 140% price increase for a single channel that I only watch for the 3 grand tours and that did not offer any new functionality worth the price hike. I decided to cancel and instead watch on one of the free stream services out there that do that job.
Seeing how much it costs now, I really wonder who sits on the board of WBD. They clearly do not understand their markets. Or they just don't care. I dare not think of whether they have a sinister agenda to purposefully destroy the sports for the wider audience.
The lifeblood of cycling is ordinary people coming out of their homes to watch a bike race gliding through their town. Free of charge. Families and friends, all ages, all together. Then they go inside and watch it on TV. And some of them then get inspired to ride and compete, and to watch other local cycling events. The TdF is the biggest spectator attended sporting event in the world, and hardly any spectators pay a penny. Yet that's why when it travels to other countries there are always hordes of people out watching it, to be part of that event and culture they've witnessed primarily on TV.
Remove it from 'stumble upon' free-to-air, and slap an impossible price tag on it, and common knowledge and enthusiasm for the Tour and other cycling events will wane, such that if/when the Tour comes to Britain again I doubt we'd see anything like the scenes of previous visits. And it's not due to a deep lack of understanding of cycling by WB, it's total corporate greed driven by their ludicrous bids on football. They don't mind if cycling and all the other 'niche' sports that were on Eurosport deteriorate.
@JonathanB6023 no chance of the Tour coming to UK as no one in UK will be able to watch it on TV for free so there no incentive for any towns to pay to host it. They won't get any publicity.
as a younger cyclist, granted I’m in the USA, never knew Eurosport was broadcast on a tv channel, I thought it was some subscription live stream app, and just watched TH-cam race recaps and highlights. Younger generations do in fact watch less tv.
You actually got closed captioning!! (something GCN refuse to provide since they removed it over half a decade ago)
We are happy to pay a small amount to watch live quality broadcasts, we have paid through amazon to watch the last two years and have enjoyed it immensely.. Watching highlights is not an option, even a hour long program doesn't feel like its worthwhile when you add adverts, interviews and studio sections to a program. When I was younger I wasn't able to watch it live and indeed it probably wasn't broadcast live at all when Robert Miller was climbing like a king, but I would watch the highlights and then go for a sprint ride for an hour, fully inspired. I agree with everything you said in the video
@@chemicaljuice3078 are you saying cycling is on Amazon TV?
I'm hoping 'people power' will prevail and we'll send a message to WBD that we won't be gouged
British Cycling destroyed British pro cycling. This is just another nail in an already nailed shut coffin. It's also been 10yrs in the making since WBD took ownership of the Eurosport parent company in 2015.
The biggest problem with even half of the current Eurosport subscribers cancelling their subscriptions and refusing to subscribe to TNT Sports is that Warner will still see at least a 180% revenue increase from those subscribers who do continue with TNT Sports so Warner doesn't give a damn because it wins!
Looking fwd to the uproar when Wimbledon goes behind a paywall. Can't believe it will be a success to put cycling behind one.
The greed is incredible. A friend and his colleges took a pay cut so that the workers in their sister factory did not get cut. At the same time a senior footballer was asking for a wage rise , his £350,000 per week was not enough...plus he no doubt gets boot deals . My friend pointed out that he maintains the equipment that keeps all the essential infrastructure running and is struggling, yet those that have "limited" careers get special treatment a with tax and pension breaks..... I no longer watch TV..
FYI: In Australia we have great coverage, past & present, live & highlights on most races throughout the season on free to air channel 'SBS'. I just rewatched TDF 2015.
Its shocking and disgusting. Even if get tnt from ee its still 20 pound a month for stuff i dont watch. Mountain bike racing. Cyclocross. Road all i watch on tv and now its gone . Uk won more on a bike than any football team has lol. Is Eurosport going off sky too?.
Not forgetting the negative impact on bicycle sales and commuting/leisure cycling in general. The shift back to motorised urban transport is inevitable.
If warner offer British cycling money for exclusive coverage of UK events, there's no way BC is passing on that money to events, they let the UK scene down every year and teams die and the scene will too, they're all about the cash too, let's not kid ourselves
The governing bodies have sold out and will destroy the sport. We need to boycott this bs.
Living in the USA, GCN+ was an affordable way to watch cycling races of all varieties. When it folded, I ended up with FloSports since they (misleadingly) represented their cycling coverage. It turns out about 80% of covered races are not available here. The auto renew is canceled. I'm maxed out on subscriptions by choice, so I have to content myself with TH-cam highlights and an occasional UCI race replay.
Same all, same all. Money is what drives competitive cycling, like all others. Sadly the sport I love is becoming another gig to add to Layman's entertainment portfolio, with the greedy ones who steer the boat of human egocentricity consonantly at the wheel. Until we take back our sport by becoming more aware and stop consuming by using our ego's unrelenting appetites, we will not change a thing in this world for better. We all have a role to play in this, but we have to honestly put some very serious questions on how we live our daily lives, and what we put into the passions that should fulfil and uplift us, instead of just feeding the dark, childish and egoistic side of ourselves. Just to put in my personal context to this: I have been cycling since a 5 year old, I'm now 45. Have been doing it mostly for the opportunity of experiencing life, as a tool for moving from A to B (well, mostly from A to A). I have also raced (both road and MTB). But the most important aspect of this was the adventure. Adventure of seeing places I have not seen before, cycling through places I well known, meeting People along the way (other cyclists, pedestrians, drivers, farmers, walkers, hikers, runners, etc.) and learning their stories, the stories of the forests, the lakes, mountains, sunsets and sunrises. The freedom and connection cycling gives me is an unmeasurable positive in my life, but for some reason the competitive side has always been a mix of emotions. I loved watching the wonderful landscapes of France, Italy, Spain and many other wonderful places in this World. Really enjoyed the emotions of the racers and stories they've shared with each other and with us - viewers. But when material gain and if the pursuit of it is the only positive outcome we are hoping to get out of it, we are in for a continuous downward spiral of damaging our own soul.
The thing that annoys me is missing out on the classics... I've watch Paris Roubaix etc for ages now, it's nice to be able to dip in and out ouf the bigger races as well... Moto GP viewings plummeted after it went over to TNT, much the same is going to happen to cycling as well.
Why should British Cycling fans subsidise Football, Rugby and all the other sports fans. I would sooner go back to the days of GCN PLUS with FULL COVERAGE of Races for a reasonable annual subscription without ADVERTs. When I go to the supermarket to buy Bread, I don't expect to have to buy butter, cheese, ham and a host of other items I don't want, when all I want is Bread! This is just taking advantage of the consumer. In effect, they want us to pay an exorbitant for a poorer service. ☹
6:52 "Look, if TNT sports offers British Cycling a large sum of money to gain exclusive rights to their major events, they have to take it" - this just isn't true, these organisations should be looking at the big picture and standing up for their members. How much will it cost to replace the people that would have been watching on free-to-air? You've given a great example of cricket which tried this strategy and now clubs are folding left and right, country cricket basically doesn't exist anymore. Unfortunately rugby is going down this path now as well by putting the six nations behind a paywall. We need to demand better from these organisations who are looking at short term profits to pad their own bonuses over long term sustainability, growing and sharing the sport.
I am wondering what the companies that sponsor cycling teams make of the loss of exposure.
The same thing happened to football, with Sky etc . I used to be an avid watcher of the sport. I refused to pay for the football behind a massive pay wall. The result has been that it has completely removed me from football. I couldn't tell you any footballers names now, apart from the really famous ones and never watch it. Why don't we have a monopolies law for sport ?
When i was a kid...Saturday grandstand was a 20 min tdf weekly review...we're getting retro viewing i suppose...dig out me Kas jersey
Looks like many will have resort to more nefarious streaming methods. It's gone full circle from not having any coverage and tapping into Eurosport on Astra Satellite for free, to wall-to-wall coverage with GCN and now even worse as there won't even be a 30min highlights of Le Tour let alone any other race. We had more with just 4 terrestrial channels in the 1980s!
I was hoping that the cycling might be available on a much cheaper Discovery plus sub. If it's only on the TNT £31 / month then I will have to miss out because that price is driven by sports I have zero interest in. I will really miss the Eurosport coverage - 99% sport and 1% pundits, unlike the Beeb and Sky where you are forced to watch endless dull interviews with has beens!!
I don't think it is a coincidence that the UK only really became a force in pro cycling with the generation that were fortunate to grow up with Channel 4, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. This could be a disaster.
Pay-for-view tv is problematic for professional cycling for all the reasons set out in the video. But we all pay our licence fee in the UK for the public broadcaster the BBC (and in Ireland for RTE). Surely these public service providers have a responsibility to provide at least highlights package for all the major European Road races available on their iplayer service, especially given the success of British professionals over the last two decades. They should also be giving a commitment to be providing the infrastructure for the tv coverage of the major races held in the UK and so put something back into the local economies where these races are organised, rather than spending public money on bringing in US made TV drama series that people have the option to watch on Netflix.
the fact we banned velomobiles from the tour de france is fascism. bring them back!
The mental thing is that downhill MTBing is being run by former Pro DH riders determined to run the scene into the ground while filling their own pockets. It’s a terrible state of affairs
The solution is to get a VPN and watch cycling on free to air Belgian TV. Fraction of the cost.
Can you put an explanation on how to do this please
@@mikeevans1952 A VPN allows you to change where it appears your computer is, like surfshark for example. Using that you can set your location to Belgium which allows you to create an account with Sporza ( the service that has cycling for free in Belgium ) and you'll be able to stream it as you normally do here. It doesn't allow you do do this if it thinks your computer is in the UK for licensing reasons.
It saddens me that I’ve not really seen any athlete engagement with fans or pushback against the changes for UK viewers. I’m more interested in the MTB scene and this will be the first year in a very long time that I won’t be watching live world cups. Thank goodness for Red Bull and their commitment to the other high profile series.
Go to their website and ask to chat with a rep then make absolutely clear that you are not paying 31 quid/month to watch the only sport you are interested in, which is cycling. They will offer you a 7 month deal at half price, refuse it (or not, up to you) make clear that it's VPN from now on. No more money.
People seem to forget you need to get eyes to get value. If you massively reduce the number of eyes the sponsors will start to go. It’s so short sighted
And it's eyes on the road that will go as well as on the TV. If cycling disappears from common knowledge then people won't come out on the streets to watch it, so sponsors won't get seen that way either. Which is probably worse because the sponsors are usually more relevant to the local people watching the actual race than to general watchers on TV.
Fact is WB don’t care they see an opportunity to make money this is what they will do. The country has been in decline for the last 14 yrs and now just more austerity which is why the domestic scene is suffering. Lastly British terrestrial tv isn’t interested and it’s nothing now but cheap tv canx my licence last year. I don’t know what the answer is or if there even is one but we have now reverted back to the 80’s where all we will see is a half hour highlights of the tour on you tube it will kill the sport
I'll use my money to pay for a good VPN rather than give it to WBD.
Genuine Question: how would that work? You would, presumably, have to have an account in another country. Wouldn't that require you to have a bank account there?
@@eddymaddix1786last year I watched the Tour de France with a free VPN on the German ARD.
Services like Wise allow you to open up accounts with local account details around the world and give you a Visa that *most* sites will accept as payment in the local currency. Some places get funny about it, because it’s a prepaid card and not a visa credit card.
Surfshark VPN costs less than £2 a month paid from my UK bank account. Set your location to Albania and you've got TH-cam without adverts, set your location to Australia and you've got all the big road cycling events live and free on SBS. It's safe, it's easy and it's very cheap. @@eddymaddix1786
You forgot to add that the main perpetrator in all this is ASO, the fith richest family in France who 'want their sport back'.
If the growth of British Cycling membership was caused by success and free TV Coverage, than maybe it wasn't a very sustainable growth and the UK now sees the same effect as Germany after the Ullrich years/downfall.
We watch a sport completely funded by sponsorship. There are no ticket sales. Team kit profit doesn't go to a cycling squad like selling a £80 football shirt does. This was always going to happen. Especially in the UK.
Bundleing everything together is the frustrating part. As someone who pays for Sky Sports, as I watch Football & NFL, I'm overpaying to subsidise sports I don't watch or have any interest in. Not having specific sporting platforms leads people to find other (usually illegal) ways of watching sport.
What is NFL?
They are not illegal everywhere, so just put a sticker on your front door, "LOCAL NAME" Consulate of "SUBJECTIVE COUNTRY WHO HAS THE LEGAL LAW."
Not long until we see a LIV golf style model on Cycling competing with this. Subscriptions are out of hand Netflix, Sky, Sky Sports, Amazon, TNT, Disney, Paramount, TH-cam. No wonder the these firestick thingys are popular.
Warner Bros couldn’t care less.
This will undoubtedly be the death of all major cycling, they ruined MTB coverage when they took it off RB, now they're ruining the whole genres, MTB was massive in the 90s and did the same back then, then killed itself and went onto smaller stages, WBD are absolutely the worst company on this earth, not just for this but for the absolute toxic programming they put out in general, I hope people don't pay, I hope the riders walk away and start independent series and we get our sport back, it's expensive enough as it is!
It will kill cycling in the UK. The golden age is dead.
If the kids don't see it, it will die. Cricket is dying a slow death having gone the same way
Really good points raised but you’re shouting in an echo chamber. These facts you have are very comprehensive and delivered succinctly. Please consider approaching the secretary for sports and culture, as this price gouging and unfair cornering of the market needs to be addressed at a level that can do something.
If the BBC covered it I'd renew my licence.
Surely sponsors should be pissed.
in italy all the big races are free on the national television. Only vuelta is not free. Maybe is because we host lot of them like Milano-sanremo, giro, strade bianche, tirreno-adriatico, lombardia and so on.... I am so sorry for english fans
Surely this is a broadcasting area that should be investigated . WBris.have created a monopoly in broadcasting this cannot be allowed to go unnoticed.
As the UK in general seems to have lower viewing figures than rest of Europe I expect this is a factor behind the Warner TNT paywall, any business worth their salt should have the opposite view of trying to increase viewing figures and set a reasonable fee and subsequent marketing to increase viewing figures and grow their audience and attract advertisers and sponsors for pro cycling.
A very narrow minded approach.
I like the Ribble Ultra SL R in the thumbnail. Thats my bike! So good!!❤
Football ruling the roost again with cycling fans paying a massive price.
That's very sad for UK fans of the sport. GCN is obviously a HUGE loss for any cycling fan.
Can't help but fear that over time, if this disease spreads out, the sponsors are going to leave the sport.
TV time is indeed a big factor for the organisations putting good money into the sport. And the sport needs it.
Quite obviously colonialism is on the rise once again, look at Trump going for Greenland, Mexico, Canada...
But did we miss that it's already happened to our TV sets, with Warner Bros and the Disney syndicate hollowing out the scene?! 😅
In the USA, You tube highlights are available from the UCI or the race promoters much of the time. Also there's TH-camrs that make races available in their entirety - typically without commentary - certainly without English language commentary. Almost every non World Cup cyclocross event is available this way. Surprisingly, the UCI has made all the World Cup elite cyclocross events available on You tube this season, so maybe more races will be available this way. Either way, I'm never paying for Flobikes or TNT / Discovery. GCN+ / Eurosport set the bar way too high - I would pay the premium prices for that kind of coverage, but the rights are too dispersed now for that to happen.
I was happy to pay £7 a month for Discovery Plus, the coverage was very good with no ad breaks! But I’m going to cancel now, not paying £31 a month! This change will be a disaster for cycling in this country!
Yep, me too, skiing coverage in winter, cycling in spring/summer, it was worth paying the £7 - but not £31!
weirdly my takeaway from your video is Eurosport doesnt get that many viewers so actually its never been adding much to this bringing cycling to the masses take 😁 which is really about FTA coverage on major terrestrial channels like ITV or the BBC, to copy the ARD model, not about satellite channels or paywalls.the Sky/Cricket example, because clearly the Sky/PremierLeague thing hasnt impacted football participation, is not the cause of participation rates dropping, but the knock on effect of schools stopping playing the sport, selling off the playing fields & the village greens turned into housing estates
And if the British domestic racing seen was still in such rude health now, British Cycling wouldnt have had to setup a commission to work out why its nothing like the heady days of the 2012 olympics anymore and have been trying to recussitate it, and there might still have been some British based pro continental teams left to take part in the Tour of Britain going forward,
But again all thats happened whilst Eurosport was showing all of this "free" (well if you exclude you do pay to watch it) coverage, so how is it, that has happened ? we havent extrapolated to some terrible post paywall future where British cyclings membership numbers were crashing, the domestic racing scene had near enough packed up or the Tour of Britain(s) were at risk of not being run at all, as cycling on tv vanished, thats been happening now whilst you can still tune into Eurosport and fill your boots with days of cycling coverage.
maybe there are just bigger problems in cycling in the UK than Warner Bros Discovery.
"Money doesn't talk, it swears." Bob Dylan
Sadly cycling viewers are going to face the same pain Motogp fans had a few years ago. Eurosport were priced out. Then it was BT Sport and now you are left with expensive TNT. Sad thing is, if you love your sport, you will eventually buckle and end up paying and they know that.
Same with Formula E fans who have to pay £30 a month to watch one race a month.
WBD seem to think every cyclist is a dentist or banker with a 10 k bike. I have zero interest in the other sports on TNT. I suspect TNT subscribers have zero interest in cycling..and Rob Hatch clearly doesn’t understand TH-cam unless he thinks that an influencer riding up a mountain on an electric bike is a good replacement for the Tour. I’ll be buying a VPN and pretending I live in a lot of different countries. Not very convenient but pretty much the same cost as my current D+ subscription.
I loved watching Cycling with ITV 4 the most over the years as there commentary just seemed more honest and basic around the sport. In general though cycling has become a lot more expensive reference buying bikes from new and the road infrastructure becomes less friendly as time goes on for the average cyclist. Just not enough road investment in the U.K and protection from traffic. I have have cycled for over 40 years and only cycle now because my years of passion but if I was starting over again now I don't know ?
I’m also out. The bulk of that £31 goes towards obscene football wages and I want no part of that. The only subscription I have now is TH-cam premium. I’ll be cancelling my TV licence in the next few weeks. People need to vote with their wallets for anything to change
Imo. Another converging problem going forward is the proliferation of e-bikes. Imagine a father asking his 10-year old son what he'd like for his birthday? Nowadays he'll reply "an e-bike daddy - please". And there goes tomorrow's Grand Tour winner. Pedal cycling may well rot away 🤷♂️.
I’m in Canada. Loved the GCN cycling coverage. Still have Flo Sports which costs a lot . I don’t watch all the other sports on it. Notice a trend : charging an exorbitant amount for the ability to watch multiple sports that one may or may not be interested in. A pox on Warners bros.
It’s an absolute fucking disgrace that The Tour de France won’t be aired on itv4 this year. I have been watching the tour since I was a child, growing up with an uncle who used to race locally and watching the tour on channel 4, then on itv4. Both my children are now very good cyclists, the older one being on the pathway to British Cycling. They would not even be involved in the sport if it wasn’t for my love of cycling, derived from growing up and being a huge fan of the Tour de France.
It’s devastating that the major cycling events will no longer be aired for all to see on free domestic TV.
ITV should be ashamed of themselves.🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
It is on ITV4 this year actually but this is the last year it'll be on. It's hardly ITVs fault though, they just can't compete with the huge American media companies who can afford to pay whatever they want knowing there are plenty of rich people out there who can afford to pay what they want.