31 quid a month doesn't just price out 'niche' sports fans, it's a lot for a handful of random Premier League games too. A diehard footy fan isn't necessarily going to be tempted by the chance to watch the rugby or the Giro.
Had a brief appearance on BBC 5 Live’s Waking Up To Money to talk about this, if anyone is interested. I’m on in the last 5 min or so of the show.
I’m on in the last 5 min or so of the show.
Fair points, well made.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0027bgq
From 47.20
Maybe I misunderstood Hannah but every year people watch the TdF there is an increase in cycling take up.
Sky are still selling packages with Discovery + included.
Whyy ASO etc. want cycling to disappear behind a (giant) paywall? I don't think my Interest in pro cycling would be what it is today without the Tour on TV in the late eighties. Hard to see how this is good for the sport, certainly in the UK.
Do the riders see much/any money for providing the TV raw content (other than teams and sponsers getting eyes on branding)? If so would this substantial increase benefit the riders at all?
Cancelled, after 15+ years of watching on Eurosport, GCN+ then Discovery. I can afford to pay the increase but damned if I’m going to.
You sound like a rich pensioner complaining about losing their Winter Fuel Allowance...
Had a brief appearance on BBC 5 Live’s Waking Up To Money to talk about this
Very clearly explained - you should get more radio pundit gigs.
I just wonder if they're calculating that "cycling fans" will subscribe for a month or two to watch the TdF, and maybe the Classics and other grand tours.
Where they'd get racing every day for three weeks, making it less outrageous in terms of VFM.
And MTB has just got lumped in with this on the spreadsheet?
Do the riders see much/any money for providing the TV raw content (other than teams and sponsers getting eyes on branding)? If so would this substantial increase benefit the riders at all?
No. ASO sells the TV rights to WB and whoever else wants / can afford to buy them. ASO gets the money. The teams get nothing directly from that, though obviously more viewers gives more coverage to sponsors, so increases their ability to leverage better deals with team sponsors. Maybe.
I just wonder if they’re calculating that “cycling fans” will subscribe for a month or two to watch the TdF, and maybe the Classics and other grand tours.
I think it's more likely that they're not that bothered tbh. TNT Sports subscriptions are going to be driven predominately by football fans who want Champion's League coverage along with some Premier League games. I suspect it's more about the level of Eurosports and Discovery + revenue not being viable. The whole benighted donkeys / cremation plan / charity advertising tells you a lot about how much cycling coverage brings in.
I think cycling's basically an afterthought. If you could convince them that somehow watching cycling was a gateway to watching footy, maybe they'd care. The whole social media thing I quoted earlier feels delusional. Like an old person's idea of what young people might want. The 'chemistry' between Adam and Orla seems particularly far-fetched. I can't imagine a load of teens and 20-somethings being transfixed by their cycling banter, but it does scream 'we want a younger, more marketable audience' rather than a bunch of coffin dodgers...
I bet you don't see ads for cremation plans on TNT.
I just wonder if they’re calculating that “cycling fans” will subscribe for a month or two to watch the TdF, and maybe the Classics and other grand tours.
Where they’d get racing every day for three weeks, making it less outrageous in terms of VFM.
And MTB has just got lumped in with this on the spreadsheet?
I imagine that comes in to play with them.
How many people will start thinking they'll just sub for a month for the Tour, then maybe just for month for the Christmas CX and another month for the main part of Classics season? Once they've done those three months Discovery have already made more money than they did for the full year at £6.99 a month.
Ive just spoken to Sky. We are on their basic package and currently get Eurosport and Discovery + for 'free'
They were aware of the change, but said there is not going to be any change in their cost. Eurosport and Discovery will still be included.
So actually Sky is not a bad way to retain access to the content.
Currently costs us £25pm for Sky Q and all the above.
@FunkyDunc it will only be the 'basic' Discovery+ package which gets you bugger all......
Do the riders see much/any money
Not directly. Generally in sports the money flows like this: rights buyer -> rights holder -> club/team -> whatever club/team needs to spend money on from salaries to stadiums to shareholder dividends to loan repayments...
Top flight football wouldn't be paying anyone anything near what they make now if they relied only on gate attendance, shirt sponsorship, keyring etc. Fundamentally the FA Cup, Champions League, Premiership etc are TV programmes.
Eurosport and Discovery will still be included.
Until Eurosport ceases to exist in the UK, which is in a month's time. Did Sky mention about TNT cost(s)?
The included Sky package shifts from the package worth £6.99 a month to the basic one worth £3.99. That has no sport coverage at all.
So for Sky customers it's effectively a jump from £0 to £30.99 per month, unless the package is somehow discounted via Sky.
Since we are talking about subscriptions I've just heard Hannah's sensible, straight talking interview and decided to restart my lapsed STW subscription.
As others have said. Im not sure how many additional subscriptions they will sell as a result of this decision. They seem to be working on the assumption that enough will sign up to offset the loss of the £7 a month subscribers they will loose.
Hopefully that will be proven to be a false assumption and they will change their minds, when they see the drop in revenues. I can live in hope at least
There's the other factor we may be missing here, they may have negotiated a deal which has nothing to do with 'new' subscriptions, but has to do do with a %age of the market that exists, now they're bundled into 'sports' there's no way of tracking who has signed up and for what etc, so they may get 0.1% of all revenue for example, which equates to a lot more than the £6.99.
I can't see any way that Discovery could track whether the next 10 people who sign up are signing up to watch cricket, or football, or DH, XC, especially as some will likely do all of the above.
I can’t see any way that Discovery could track whether the next 10 people who sign up are signing up to watch cricket, or football, or DH, XC, especially as some will likely do all of the above.
They won't know on initial sign-up but they'll soon know that data from subscribers viewing patterns.
They won’t know on initial sign-up but they’ll soon know that data from subscribers viewing patterns.
Yeah but today i'll be watching Allula tour, then football later.... so which did i sign up for.. In a few months i'll have MotoGP on and DH, then TDF and WSB along with the Champions League...
I've been thinking about this over night....
I'm not a football fan but I will watch the world Cup - just like a lot of non-cycling folk will watch the TDF etc.
I can name probably about 2-3 England players and a couple of International players.
Most non-cycling people can probably name 3 or 4 road cyclist and possibly the Olympic XC champions by virtue of the news, internet and watching those couple of events.
Ask anyone outside of Mountain Biking to name the current World Champs and you'll get a blank look - ask them to name any XC, DH or EDR riders and they won't have a clue.
Road cycling has massive outside interest from the casual watchers - my Dad watches it, my colleagues watch it and Mrs Miggins at No 46 probably watches it - Why? - because it's on ITV and other free to air channels all over the World.
The same with F1 - you can watch the highlights and selected full races on Channel 4 without having to subscribe to SkyF1.
If I 'really' wanted to watch some footy but didn't have Amazon or Sky sports etc I can watch Match of the Day - it's free..... This is probably watched by a lot of casual footy fans.
The 'casual' TDF watcher isn't going to pay to watch it - therefore loss of audience.
No one 'casually' watches XC, DH or EDH because it's a massively niche sport within Cycling.....
By WBD sticking all cycling behind a paywall they're not only losing the casual watchers, they're going to lose some or majority (if STW, PB & Vital forums are to be believed...) of the 'hard core' enthusiasts of the niche disciplines.
Most of the casual loss will be covered by the Football crowd and maybe some of the 'hard core' MotoGp, WSB and General Motorsport fans.
They've tried to make DH more watcher friendly by reducing rider numbers and messing with the format - brilliant, but who's going to watch it?
Would be interesting to know what the viewing figures for last season was for XC & DH - bet it'll be a lot lower this season....
Going back to F1 it's a global sport because pretty much everyone has access to some free to air content, the same with road cycling - big non-cycling sponsors because more people can see it.
How does WBD and ESO and UCI expect to grow interest in the niche cycling disciplines by fans and outside sponsors if no one is watching?
You know what, if they came back and said you can subscribe to one sport for £10/month I'd probably do it.......
Not directly. Generally in sports the money flows like this: rights buyer -> rights holder -> club/team -> whatever club/team needs to spend money on from salaries to stadiums to shareholder dividends to loan repayments…
Cycling doesn't work like that though. ASO say, the organiser of the Tour de France, sells the TV rights, all the teams get from them is an invite to take part in the race and, if they win stuff, prize money. Cycling teams are basically financed by their sponsors, so the cash flow above stops abruptly at 'rights holder'. It's a fundamentally different model from football say, where the money from broadcast rights goes mostly to the clubs.
The prospective 'damage' to the sport here is not about direct income from broadcast rights, but from reduced exposure, which in the short terms reduces the value of sponsoring a cycling team - less exposure for your brand - and in the longer term, might hit participation in the sport. WB is unlikely to care much about either.
But equally there must be a point where if cycling doesn't have commercial value to broadcasters, they're not going to cover it.
BT are offering deals on TNT and Now TV, they look reasonable considering the price of ea h. Also an extended contract for just TNT. For BT internet subscribers. This looks tempting
Do the riders see much/any money
Not sure, but I know that UEFA Champions League has landed our local football club with a big prize pot. Apparently its landed them an extra £7m. I am not sure what their usual turnover is, but apparently this is a massive cash injection
They are talking about improving facilities for the club, in fact they have given some of the cash away to other teams in the welsh league.
Clubs like Wrexham and Cardiff are now trying to get in on the act too.
As to my conversation with Sky - I will believe it when I see it 🙂
So obviously TV does benefit the sport.
I wouldn't mind if any of this money made it way to grass roots cycling, or even to the teams, but it doesn't it lines the TV companies pockets
The domestic road scene is in a mess, these teams used to be feeder teams for the world tour, but they're all closing down. The road racing scene here is decimated, Tour of Britain struggling to run etc.
I would find the money somehow if i could see if actually benefited cycling and cyclists, but it doesn't
I love watching the road cycling, the grand tours, and especially the one day Classics, but not for £30 a month.
It's not that i mind paying, I happily paid for GCN+ and i felt it was value for money - this doesn't feel value for money at all.
Comments on here are interesting:
Top one was Rob Warner posting a line of laughing emojis.
I feel a double facepalm might have been better.
Hannah was good on't radio.
How long are broadcasted events available on Discovery/TNT? Would it be possible (not saying it's a great idea) to wait 'till the end of the year and pay a month to watch everything from earlier in the year on catchup while the weather is arse?
They won’t know on initial sign-up but they’ll soon know that data from subscribers viewing patterns.
Don't they ask what sports you're interested in as soon as you login (I might be thinking of somebody else).
They'll almost certainly be tracking this kind of data though. I'm not sure the loss of subscriptions from a decent amount of cycling fans will really make a dent in their numbers to be honest, and they'll be hoping to make up for it by offering a wider package to hardcore sports fans.
I have zero interest in most sports, so I'll be cancelling mine after the weekend.
As said will it even register that there's a flurry of cancelations this week? If it does will they be able to attribute it to the cycling fraternity and will they care? It's got to be small beer in comparison to the football numbers and I doubt it would cause any WB execs to lose any sleep over it.
Does anyone know what the package that includes the big ticket sports cost before? IE they're bundling the cycling in with those as a good thing to spread some diversity and sod those who signed up for the cycling. - that'll be collateral damage.
As said will it even register that there’s a flurry of cancelations this week? If it does will they be able to attribute it to the cycling fraternity and will they care?
100% they will be looking very closely at this and be very aware of media attention.
Presumably they'll already be expecting it. It's whether the numbers come as a surprise or within expected levels of tolerance that is the question.
As said will it even register that there’s a flurry of cancelations this week? If it does will they be able to attribute it to the cycling fraternity and will they care?
It won't just be the cycling community cancelling - I'd imagine anyone who watched any of the niche sports Eurosport covered will be pretty pissed by this decision.
I only had it so I could watch sportscar racing and the audience for that won't be massive!
£30 to watch one of the dullest televised sports there is. Madness. That said, people do it to watch F1 and thats worse...
Does anyone know what the package that includes the big ticket sports cost before?
It cost pretty much the same. I had a strategic month of TNT last year because it covered something like three Arsenal Champions League games and three Premier League ones and I fancied watching them all. I do suspect this is more about Eurosport not being worth their while rather than any cunning plan to expand the main TNT channels, at least in the short term, but what do I know.
If all goes to plan, reaching out to the yoof on the socials will soon swell the cycling audience. Apparently.
£30 to watch one of the dullest televised sports there is. Madness. That said, people do it to watch F1 and thats worse…
I watch it for the chemistry. It's like Love Island with added crashes.
Does anyone know what the package that includes the big ticket sports cost before? IE they’re bundling the cycling in with those as a good thing to spread some diversity and sod those who signed up for the cycling. – that’ll be collateral damage.
Pretty much the same, which would imply that for all except a few hardcore cycling fans they'll probably lose most of those £6.99's.
Football I understand why it costs £30.
But everything else just seems bonkers. It's basically just saying you can't watch any sport unless you want to pay for the football which must be almost their entire turnover?
But everything else just seems bonkers. It’s basically just saying you can’t watch any sport unless you want to pay for the football which must be almost their entire turnover?
If you spin that round, I guess the question would be, 'why should they air minority sports at low prices if it doesn't make business sense?' Or maybe where is the price point where it would be financially viable for them?
Google suggests that Eurosport's average audience for the Tour in 2023 was 112,000. That doesn't feel like a lot.
I wonder how this is going down in France, not for the domestic viewers but as a vehicle for tourism. I can't be the only person who visited a region of France after seeing it featured in the Tour. Not that anyone in France has any influence on decisions at WB.
If you spin that round, I guess the question would be, ‘why should they air minority sports at low prices if it doesn’t make business sense?’
It has made business sense for many years past. They're just getting greedy, in a really stupid way.
It has made business sense for many years past. They’re just getting greedy, in a really stupid way.
This does remind me when TeamRock Radio left DAB cos it cost like a a million quid to be broadcast, they went online only and I went from a daily listener during the commute to never hearing it again. I wonder if broadcasting Eurosport in the UK via Sky, TNT or Virgin TV wasn't cost effective anymore.
I do imagine channels which aren't the own broadcasters pay to be broadcast via Sky, TNT and Virgin?
If you spin that round, I guess the question would be, ‘why should they air minority sports at low prices if it doesn’t make business sense?’
You seem to be misunderstanding how these businesses operate. The status quo (Eurosport) was fine. Then they were bought by Discovery, which in turn was recently merged into Warner. The price rise is simply to pay for all these acquisitions, and to show a return on investment - it's nothing to do with whether Eurosport was profitable or not!
I cancelled my Discovery+ sub and declined the half price for 6 months offer. Today I got an email offer of the same half price for 7 months deal, which is valid until 30th April - so if you are looking at that, you can use that to defer until later and cover MSR to Lombardia say.
@wait4me with a gallic shrug of indifference.
I've seen one ragebait post on socials, but little else.
