That BT deal doesn't attract me at all. It's more than Warner Bros are charging and for the same enormous range of content I'm not interested in. If Warner offered a shopping list of sports to subscribe to and charge per sport I would stay and they would make a few quid a month from me. As it is I'll be leaving and they'll make nowt from me and all the others who will leave.
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!
^ that.
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!
Fair enough, but why are they closing down Eurosport in the UK then? They must be confident that a significant number of Eurosport / Discovery + app users will come across to TNT at more than three times the price.
Presumably that only works if around a quarter of current UK app users upgrade to full TNT access, which seems questionable if this place is anything to go by. If people's reaction to the 'price rise' is not to subscribe, how does that show 'a return on investment'.
Sorry, I'm probably being really naive here.
It has made business sense for many years past. They’re just getting greedy, in a really stupid way.
Print journalism made commercial sense for years, not so much these days. Things change.
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
This has been caused by the UCI selling broadcast rights to all cycling disciplines as a single package for the first time, in past years the mountain biking has been separated from road/track and was bought by a broadcaster (Redbull tv) that actually were involved in the sport before they started showing live racing. The current sh**show is as a direct result of WBD buying the rights to show the grand tours and track world cup then also ending up with a sport they have little interest in promoting. I have paid for a few months since they took over and I thought Josh Carlson / Aaron Gwin were far better at commentary for the few races they did last year than Cedric Gracia and Ric Mclaughlin, not a chance I'll be paying £31 a month as I only watched the DH races during the months I'd subscribed
Not just cycling.
Same for WSB and BSB
The current sh**show is as a direct result of WBD buying the rights to show the grand tours and track world cup then also ending up with a sport they have little interest in promoting.
Not the way I understand it- Discovery bought EWS (ESO Sports) a few years ago, who then bid for the MTB World Cup, bringing Enduro with them. so it was deliberate, kind of..
Apparently it was a bit of a surprise to ESO that the UCI actually handed it to them, hence the panic at ESO that saw the Scottish Enduro Series dropped when they realised they had taken on more than they could cope with.
More would sign up if they got rid of Carlton Kirby, even at £31/month ?
I would expect to be paid to watch Kirby, not the reverse. I think the whole commercial model falls to pieces at that point 🙂
Road cycling has massive outside interest from the casual watchers
Throughout the season or just TdF?
I used to get Eurosport with my Virgin TV.
I watched the cycling, the Dakar, the MotoGP.
Then MotoGP went to BT so I cancelled my Virgin sub and now just have Freeview. I don't watch the Dakar or MotoGP any more.
When it was on terrestrial I watched F1, then it went to Sky. Now I don't watch F1.
I watched all of ITV's cycling coverage. Now that's going, I won't watch cycling any more.
The only other sport I watch is Rugby Union, and if that goes behind a paywall I won't watch that any more either.
So they aren't getting any subs from me, and I can't see the sponsors so there's less value for them. I can't be unique in this, and it seems to me that a business model that is all about screwing more and more money from a smaller and smaller group of people probably isn't a good long term bet.
@slowoldman I was referring to just the TdF.
But also again people in the street can probably name several (current or past) British Road or Track cyclists from the exposure they get on the TV and interweb - because so much of it is free to air.
Does anyone remember when Rachel Atherton was on A question of sport?
I bet not only didn't the audience know who she was Sue Barker and the team members probably didn't know!
That BT deal doesn’t attract me at all.
fair enough. I was looking for the cheapest deal that allows F1, rugby and cycling. Am already subscribe to NowTV sport for marital harmony. And a Sunday snooze for me. Also tie in with Netflix (which I don’t watch either). Looks like a lower price than I pay now for NowTV and Discovery+. Which I will cancel.
I Don’t watch the mountain biking, but I watch every minute of the track. Always sat on my bike on the trainer.
@TiRed where are you seeing the NOW deal?
Annoyingly I’ve just signed up to 6 months on NOW sport for £35 (26 for sport and 9 for ultra boost)
I did look to see if I can have TNT but only option was changing my location to Ireland, but I could only buy the full set of Sky Sports and TNT channels. I don’t get any option to add TNT to my existing package.
Throughout the season or just TdF?
TBH even as a keen cyclist I only watch* the TdF either live or in hilights.
Giro or Vuelta I'd watch if I happened to be working from home.
*Have on in the background
The deal is on BT Internet site after login as an internet subscriber and as BT TV and internet pivots to EE. They also have TNT only for £16. But I need the NowTV for marital harmony. And a much prefer access via Apple TV box as I have one in the garage, but could rejig as needed.
Just cancelled my D+ subscription, which I balked at after the great and cheap coverage GCN+ offered up till 2023.
It's no wonder people are turning to fire sticks or sharing accounts when subscription services are taking the piss like this.
What a shame, I only used discovery+ for DH, was FOC as part of my Sky contract. I won't be paying for it so, for me, WC DH is dead, I'll never watch another DH world cup. I expect many will be the same. More for other things, most things are replaceable.
I want to think there's a combination of subscription losses and viewing patterns that means they decide that cycling isn't worth the effort and they can make more by selling off the rights to someone like GCN.
Probably wishful thinking, it's just crazy that with silly numbers of different streaming platforms and personalised everything, the only sports coverage I've ever subscribed for is now only available like it's a 90s sky tv package.
I want to think there’s a combination of subscription losses and viewing patterns that means they decide that cycling isn’t worth the effort and they can make more by selling off the rights to someone like GCN.
It's a nice idea, but after some googling, I think that it's mostly about the agglomeration of rights to minor sports across the world - Eurosports basic model - but then paywalling them on one big channel, TNT, so sort of the opposite of what you're suggesting. Getting rid of GCN was kind of the opposite of that, ie: deciding that a single channel for a 'minor' sport wasn't part of their business model going forward.
I guess the ultimate end-game would be to own rights to every sport across the globe, then charge a whopping great single fee to access them all on a single subscription. Maybe from high up in Warner, the audience breaks down to 'sports fans', who just consume 'sport' rather than any awareness that some people are only interested in one particular minor sport. It's more convenient that way, maybe.
I wonder why GB Eurosport has been singled out though? Are we somehow a special case. Or a pilot / experiment. Or is it something to do with the way rights work for the UK market? Is it in some way related to how ad sales are structured - eg you can sell TV spots on a football match for more...
Anyway, none of this really matters and I'm sure I'm absolutely overthinking it and, if I really cared, some specialist media site out there would explain it all in excruciating marketing speak gibberish with lots of stuff about market penetration and segmentation.
Bottom line, very expensive if you want the same level of cycling coverage from end of Feb as you had before.
It may be that Warner Brothers has more exclusive rights in the UK. In other markets where free-to-air broadcasters still have rights putting Eurosport coverage behind an expensive paywall would make less sense commercially.
Aware we are geographically still Europe, but could it just be as daft as we aren't in the EU now so Eurosport is not being made available as it would be getting exported to us as we are outside the EU?
I don't tend to watch cycling, so this isn't really impacting me - I also don't subscribe to sports channels, so even less of an impact.
However, I coach kids who do watch the cycling - all disciplines in a lot of cases so if this avenue is removed then the chats are going to change drastically and I suspect some of the kids may turn off a bit from cycling - which isn't a good thing at all.
From the outside it looks to be a greedy driven decision, I have no doubt broadcast cycling isn't cheap and the market (especially in the UK) isn't going to be large, so combining it under 1 package sort of makes sense...however, it appears the price is far too high and the volume of sports now accessible via this price is also too much. Hopefully that'll be fixed moving forward if enough people drop their subscription.
Other issue they'll have is finding out if the viewers are genuinely interested in the cycling or just stumbled across it by accident and left it on.
B*gger me, it seems like 6 Nations rugby is also going that way to, cycling and rugby are the only two sports i follow really, although i used to enjoy some of the random sports on Eurosport, like speed climbing or the surfing..
Aware we are geographically still Europe, but could it just be as daft as we aren’t in the EU now so Eurosport is not being made available as it would be getting exported to us as we are outside the EU?
It's UK and Ireland impacted iirc
I reckon that either Eurosport is a more established and important revenue stream for WBD in Europe, or they're just trying it out on us mug punters first.
However, I coach kids who do watch the cycling – all disciplines in a lot of cases so if this avenue is removed then the chats are going to change drastically and I suspect some of the kids may turn off a bit from cycling – which isn’t a good thing at all.
We've just had the same conversation between our coaching group.
BC doesn't seem to want to support grassroots MTB so it's a constant battle, but removing the motivation for some of the kids in the form of being able to watch their idols will have a negative impact.
Maybe from high up in Warner, the audience breaks down to ‘sports fans’, who just consume ‘sport’ rather than any awareness that some people are only interested in one particular minor sport. It’s more convenient that way, maybe.
But again, if you were listening to what Chris Ball, Loic Bruni, etc have been saying then this has been the plan all along. The people they are interested in is people who are too gormless to do something else between MotoGP and the football so the theory is they will continue sitting on the couch watching downhill mountain biking while waiting for the sports they usually spend their weekends watching to come on.
It was pretty uninspiring to hear when they were talking about it at first and now that we are seeing what that is actually going to look like in practice it's just depressing.
We (mountain bikers) were never part of this equation so the idea that WB will pay attention if enough mountain bikers cancel their subscriptions is laughable, unfortunately.
We (mountain bikers) were never part of this equation so the idea that WB will pay attention if enough mountain bikers cancel their subscriptions is laughable, unfortunately.
True, but this is also affecting WEC, WSB, BSB, Road and Track Cycling, Skiing, Climbing, Sailing and god knows what else fans.
AFAIK a TV service has never tried to piss off as wide a variety of sports fans in one go, normally it's just one group at a time, football, golf and F1 happened over a couple of decades. I'm hoping that the blow back is enormous and they change their minds, but if not I can't see if working out well for them
but this is also affecting WEC, WSB, BSB, Road and Track Cycling, Skiing, Climbing, Sailing and god knows what else fans.
I had a similar thread with snooker fans moaning about it suggested to me by the algorhithm.
Honestly can't see this sticking for them if they do stay at that price. But this might go down as the year that nobody watched (or paid to watch) cycling or other niche sports - and they will do something more realistic next year.
Have we ever thought that this is the ONLY choice for MTB at the moment. Lets say for example a MTB series costs £2,000,000 a year to broadcast and the current Discovery+ income brings in £1,000,000 from the £6.99s that people are paying. We're obviously £1,000,000 short and the rest of the sports are actually taking up the slack, not the other way around.
This isn't the UCI/whoever screwing the sport, WSBK has done the same, BSB the same, CX, XC, i bet things like Biathlon, Skiing and all the other sports on Eurosport are up in arms too. This isn't some sort of conspiracy to kill of MTB and DH racing.
Is it a great answer for people who only want to watch DH, heck no, of course it's not. But if there's not enough people who are prepared to pay, then who exactly foots the bill ?
The comments on PB are full of "i didn't pay for Freecaster or RBTV, so i'm not paying for this"... but who does then ? Someone has to cover the costs ? Either partially or in full...
Imagine how many people it takes at a World Cup DH to provide coverage, 50? Someone has to pay their wages for the weekend
Have we ever thought that this is the ONLY choice for MTB at the moment. Lets say for example a MTB series costs £2,000,000 a year to broadcast and the current Discovery+ income brings in £1,000,000 from the £6.99s that people are paying. We’re obviously £1,000,000 short and the rest of the sports are actually taking up the slack, not the other way around.
So you end up with Schroedinger's sport, where it can only function because football fans are paying huge amounts to watch the Premier League/Champions League, but virtually no-one who actually wants to watch the sport chooses to pay out the exorbitant monthly subscription?
If none of the sport's actual fans are watching it, does it really exist? 😉
it can only function because football fans are paying huge amounts to watch the Premier League/Champions League, but virtually no-one who actually wants to watch the sport chooses to pay out the exorbitant monthly subscription?
Pretty much yeah.
Wonder how many of the beer & fag swilling obese underclass that watch wendyball on TV for their daily exercise will be watching skinny foreigners riding bikes uphill and through muddy tracks for hours on end ?
In the equestrian world they produce their own TV coverage with loads of small events covered.
This is one of the bigger sites - £130 for a year though, no monthly option...
https://www.clipmyhorse.tv/en_GB/
...but single big events like Burghley Horse Trial they do their own and you can watch for £20.
How did Red Bull TV make their money from showing DH & XC?
The obvious aim is to settle at 15-17 quid a month by a series of rolling discounts or bundled deals. They are simply testing the market to see what is the maximum that even their core users/payers will accept, and to fool a few into thinking they are getting a bargain because they are paying much less than the 'headline' price.
I can see it being an add-on to a Sky Sports package, for example.
I assume Red Bull cross subsidy the xco/dh world cups from other parts of the business - other event production and soft drinks. Might be wrong, but as they are already in the sport, it would be easier for them to see the benefits of cross-subsidising.
How did Red Bull TV make their money from showing DH & XC?
It was probably just out of their marketing budget so no profit needed.
They can then use the clips of those crazy MTBers in other advertising posts on social media.
If they were better technically they could potentially do PPV for the DH World Cups at £5-10, but they are woeful so that's not really an option either.
@martinhutch That's pretty much how I see it. When Eurosport's switched off, I'm going to get in touch with Virgin Media and drop my TV package to the bare minimum, then take out their £18 a month TNT. I only had the bigger TV package to include Eurosport, so I might be lucky and actually save a few bob whilst still enjoying the Spring classics.
I was using. it for the UK speedway now cancelled, i guess if people don’t watch they will just cancel the sport coverage and it will turn into another football channel.
That might be for the best. Then another provider could pick up the cycling.
“ In the equestrian world they produce their own TV coverage with loads of small events covered.”
But it used to be covered by the BBC and you watched it on the red button. Haven’t watched horsing since then!
There is so much I hate about the 21st century…
Is this to cover Rob Warner's new contract fee?
I guess ill stick to crankworks this year
