I guess you’ll have heard the news, that 2025 is to be ITV’s last Tour de France. Surprised (no free-to-air for London 2027??). Slightly in shock. No Gary presenting the Tour. Hard to believe.
Loss of free-to-air Tour de France described as a 'bummer' by ITV Sport team: “I don’t think it should be allowed to happen"
CyclingTuesday, 29 October 2024 at 10:23
After one last edition in 2025, the yearly free-to-air coverage of the Tour de France on ITV Sport in the UK will come to an end after exclusive rights to cycling's showpiece events were announced by Discovery+ and Eurosport. According to some of ITV's most recognisable faces, this decision could prove disastrous for future of British Cycling.
“For me and so many others, it was the free-to-air production, Channel 4 and then ITV, that really brought me into the Tour de France,” says four-time Tour de France stage winner David Millar on lead commentator Ned Boulting's podcast, Never Strays Far, describing the decision as a 'bummer'. “I come from a family that wasn’t into cycling. It’s not something that somebody in my family would have had the Tour de France on, and I’d have seen it in passing and eventually got persuaded to come in. It was me that found it or stumbled across it on Channel 4 in the early 90s, and it just added a whole new level of colour."
“I think that counts for so many others, so many others, not just cyclists, but cycling fans. We know from our experience as well with ITV commentary that the reach it has, let’s be honest, far exceeds Eurosport in the sense that it is accessible," Millar, a former Maillot Jaune wearer, continues. “The majority of the people that watch the ITV Tour de France show, they don’t watch any other bike racing in the year. They also don’t want to just watch a pure racing show, they want to watch something that is inclusive, and goes a bit beyond the race, which is what the free-to-air has always done in the UK.”
As mentioned, Millar also believes the future of cycling in Great Britain is also damaged by the move of the Tour de France to behind a paywall. “Let’s be honest, it’s struggling at the moment, on all levels, and to have the Tour de France taken away from free-to-air means that the descending spiral that we appear to be in in the UK with regards road cycling is going to continue. It sucks for the kids like me who fell in love with this quirky sport, and they could just go and turn on a TV and watch it on their own. They didn’t need their parents to get a subscription,” he concludes.
Former Team Sky rider and ITV analyst Pete Kennaugh also has real concerns. “For cycling in the UK, for me, it’s a massive, massive step back. I think the fact of it not being free-to-watch anymore is going to have a devastating effect on the sport in the UK. You might not see it in a year’s time, two years’ time, but going forward, five years, 10 years, I think it will have a huge, huge impact. Even me going on the school run, you have parents who you had no idea watch the Tour or are into cycling, talk about, ‘What a stage that was’ or, ‘Did you see his attack or that crash?’. It’s really, really sad," he says, even going so far as to remark: “I don’t think it should be allowed to happen personally.”
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