{"id":237390,"date":"2025-07-04T12:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T12:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/237390\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T12:30:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T12:30:14","slug":"id-rather-not-watch-than-pay-31-for-21-days-just-18-of-road-cc-readers-to-watch-tour-de-france-on-tnt-sports-as-uk-fans-say-farewell-to-itvs-free-to-air-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/237390\/","title":{"rendered":"“I’d rather not watch than pay \u00a331 for 21 days”: Just 18% of road.cc readers to watch Tour de France on TNT Sports, as UK fans say farewell to ITV’s free-to-air coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year’s Tour de France is the end of an era for British cycling fans, the race’s free-to-air coverage to disappear from our screens at the end of July. You’ll no doubt be aware by now that Warner Bros. Discovery has bought the rights to exclusively broadcast the race in the UK via its TNT Sports channels from 2026, meaning fans will need to stump up \u00a330.99-a-month to watch<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The repeated line from TNT Sports has been that it will be “levelling-up” coverage<\/a> of professional cycling and bringing the sport\u00a0to new audiences by broadcasting races on its channels, adjacent to Premier League and Champions League football, tennis, rugby, cricket and the rest.<\/p>\n

\"TadejTadej Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard, 2024 Tour de France (credit: ASO\/Charly Lopez)<\/p>\n

However, many fans we’ve heard from feel they’ve been asked to pay a significant price hike for what\u00a0is largely the same product as was appearing on Eurosport for \u00a36.99-a-month last year.<\/p>\n

It’s also been argued that the end of ITV’s free-to-air coverage\u00a0also risks excluding\u00a0more casual viewers who may not care about professional cycling for the other 11 months of the year, but\u00a0tune in every July for a summer sporting tradition. Likewise, for those who discovered cycling flicking through the channels or simply\u00a0because it was there, free and available, it’s hard to see how the end of free-to-air coverage will make the sport more accessible to newcomers.<\/p>\n

> “No plans”\u00a0to save free-to-air Tour de France coverage<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

TNT Sports would argue it\u00a0will convert new fans who’ll discover cycling from watching other sports on their channels and that its extensive free highlights and clips on YouTube and social media are targeted at the younger generation who increasingly watch\u00a0sport on smartphones and through social media.<\/p>\n

\"TNTTNT Sports (credit: TNT Sports) (credit: road.cc)<\/p>\n

This week we asked our readers for their thoughts on the end of free-to-air and TNT Sports’ coverage, and 70 per cent of those who confirmed they would be watching the Tour de France this July said\u00a0they would do so on ITV. On TNT Sports? That figure dropped to 18 per cent.<\/p>\n

Now that’s hardly surprising, considering the ITV viewing figures and the fact it doesn’t cost \u00a330.99. However, significantly, 12 per cent said they would be watching foreign coverage via a VPN, suggesting plenty of people who aren’t overly loyal to ITV or who might want advert-free viewing would still rather go elsewhere than\u00a0pay\u00a0for a TNT Sports subscription.<\/p>\n

“I’d rather not watch the tour than have to pay \u00a331 for 21\u00a0days”<\/p>\n

As we’ve heard plenty in the months since the closure of Eurosport in the UK\u00a0was announced, its sports moving across to TNT Sports at the end of February, the price of the “premium” TNT subscription is a prohibitive factor for many.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many readers have told us they would pay to watch cycling and did when it was on GCN+ or Eurosport at \u00a36.99-a-month. Those are people who are already ‘through the door’ as cycling fans and almost certainly follow the other Grand Tours and at least some other races too.<\/p>\n

However, reading social media comments suggests there is\u00a0also a more casual viewership\u00a0who only watch the Tour de France and have no intention or interest in paying to watch cycling (let alone \u00a330.99), regardless of if it’s only for one month a year.<\/p>\n

> “TNT price hike is two fingers to cycling fans,”\u00a0says ex-WorldTour pro\u00a0Harry Tanfield<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“I’d rather not watch than pay \u00a331 for 25\u00a0days,” one road.cc reader told us, the number of Tour stages in fact only 21 so making that money-to-racing ratio worse.<\/p>\n

Picking up on Warner Bros. Discovery’s favourite line that TNT Sports’ coverage will be “next level”, another reader told us: “For \u00a3372\/yr it’d have to be next level. I guess for a one-off payment of \u00a330.99 it MIGHT be worth a try next year. Maybe. But probably not.”<\/p>\n

On Facebook, Olly Evans commented: “Love the ITV4 highlights. Seen some of the TNT highlights of previous races recently and I wouldn’t pay for them, even at reasonable prices. 2025 could be my final TdF.”<\/p>\n

\"ITVITV Tour de France (credit: ITV)<\/p>\n

Alan Quinby agreed: “I will be watching on ITV, the greed of WBD has put me off pro-cycling so in future years I’ll just be riding my bike instead.”<\/p>\n

\"ITVITV vs TNT Sports comments (credit: road.cc)<\/p>\n

Of course, if 18 per cent of our readers are going to be watching on TNT Sports that suggests that a decent chunk are happy to pay \u00a330.99, especially when there is still a free alternative available.<\/p>\n

Ray Blow told us: “If you only watch cycling, TNT is costly but I also watch superbikes, MotoGP, speedway and footy and already had subscription via Sky so in my mind, it’s worth it.”<\/p>\n

>\u00a0“A huge problem”: Pro cycling disappearing behind \u00a3372-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?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Philip Kelly is also an example of why it doesn’t necessarily have to cost \u00a330.99, as there are broadband-related deals and negotiation-related discounts<\/a> to be had.<\/p>\n

“TNT live and ITV for highlights. I used [the threat of] leaving Virgin Media and switching to Sky if they made me start paying full whack for TNT [to get it discounted]. It worked.”<\/p>\n

However, even for some of those that aren’t paying full price\u00a0either, the decision for this summer’s channel choice isn’t so simple,\u00a0Claire Cocquyt saying: “We got TNT at reduced rate but will watch ITV coverage as soon much better and interesting.”<\/p>\n

Anecdotally it seems TNT Sports has a long way to go to convince many cycling fans that the offering is worth the price. The big news the broadcasting giant was keen to tell the media this week was that its ‘quad screen’ from the Giro will be available to viewers again at the Tour.<\/p>\n

> OPINION:\u00a0Has the UCI sold cycling’s soul to Warner Bros. Discovery?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This allows you to have four screens in one, watching all the camera feeds simultaneously for views from across the peloton. Recently retired Romain Bardet will also be on punditry duty but again, are those two features really taking cycling coverage to the “next level” and would a quad screen even appeal to the more casual viewer who may be left behind once free-to-air coverage ends?<\/p>\n

Maybe we’ll need to run another poll this time next year once TNT has the\u00a0monopoly. What’s going to happen to that 70 per cent watching ITV? Some, we’re sure, will ultimately pay to watch\u00a0on TNT Sports so you can expect its figure to be higher in 2026, but surely too VPN use will be on the rise too. How many people simply won’t watch? Time will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year’s Tour de France is the end of an era for British cycling fans, the race’s free-to-air…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-237390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114794976077620773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}