{"id":739443,"date":"2026-02-03T11:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T11:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/739443\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T11:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T11:44:10","slug":"tnt-pundit-warns-of-damage-to-british-cycling-as-tour-de-france-moves-behind-paywall-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/739443\/","title":{"rendered":"TNT pundit warns of damage to British cycling as Tour de France moves behind paywall in the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I think a lot of people, the general public, watch the Tour de France<\/a> on ITV and terrestrial TV,” Smith said. “To take it away from them, I think it\u2019s losing a lot of fans… But I do think it\u2019s a big loss not having ITV. That\u2019s how I got into watching cycling.”<\/p>\n

Smith argues that while hardcore cycling fans will pay for the comprehensive coverage provided by Warner Bros Discovery, the sport relies on terrestrial television to capture the imagination of the wider public – the “Joe Public” who stumbles upon the race by chance.<\/p>\n

“People I know who aren\u2019t cycling fans will tell me they\u2019ve watched the Tour de France<\/a>… And we\u2019re not going to have that anymore,” Smith explained. “For Joe Public, it\u2019s a shame to lose these guys, because they\u2019re not going to pay, so how are they going to find out about the Tour de France?”He pointed to the legacy of previous free-to-air coverage, which helped launch the careers of some stars into the mainstream consciousness following the Olympics. “I know of some cyclists who are cyclists because they watched it on ITV, they saw it, and they saw the British riders. Nobody really knew who Mark Cavendish<\/a> or Bradley Wiggins<\/a> were until the Olympics and now they all know about it.”<\/p>\n

The move to pay-TV comes at a paradoxical moment for British cycling. The UK is set to host a historic double Grand D\u00e9part in 2027, with both the men’s and women’s races beginning on British soil. The men’s race will start in Edinburgh, a massive opportunity for Scottish cycling that Smith fears might be squandered if locals can’t watch their home heroes on TV.<\/p>\n

“Look at Scotland now, Scotland has someone that\u2019s a contender [Oscar Onley],” Smith said. “And there are a lot of Scottish people out there that have really no interest in cycling, but will think, \u2018oh, this Scot is in this race in France, I\u2019m going to watch it\u2019. But how are they going to watch it? They\u2019re not going to pay to watch it.”<\/p>\n

“I can see both sides, of course. That paywall pays for a lot of things… But I can totally understand [the disappointment of] losing the ITV coverage… We need that platform, we need that kind of general person that sits there and it might be the only race they watch all year,” he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I think a lot of people, the general public, watch the Tour de France on ITV and terrestrial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[45504,217851,4230,219105,108596,79,20680,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-739443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-bradley-wiggins","9":"tag-brian-smith","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-mark-cavendish","12":"tag-oscar-onley","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tour-de-france","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116006529428967545","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739443","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=739443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}