Member of British parliament expresses concern that UK could lose a "gateway to a sport that is otherwise comparatively inaccessible" without free-to-air Tour de France broadcast
CyclingThursday, 06 March 2025 at 16:57
British public is still mourning the loss of free-to-air Tour de France broadcasts from 2026. The matter became so delicate that even a discussion in parliament was held on the topic this Wednesday.
"Eurosport’s demise is a hammer blow for coverage of cycling in the UK," Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty said during a hearing in the Westminster Hall, Cycling Weekly reports.
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"Cycling is one of those sports that people almost fall into by accident. Everyone had a bike growing up, everyone learns how to ride a bike, and I think the inspiration for riding that bike, and potentially taking it further and wanting to ape some of those successes that we see in the Olympics every four years is something that comes from having that on TV in front of you."
"For many, terrestrial coverage of the Tour de France has been their only entry point to a sport that is fundamentally extremely niche," Obese-Jecty said. "The Tour de France is more than just a famous cycling race, it is the gateway to a sport that is otherwise comparatively inaccessible, now made even more so by the decision to remove live free-to-air coverage from our TV screens."
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"To be popular, a sport must be visible. To be visible, a sport must have a television presence," Obese-Jecty said. "The government would never allow the FIFA World Cup, the Olympic Games, or Wimbledon to be put behind a paywall."
The MP concluded by expressing his concern that "the visibility of the sport will be limited to slightly overweight, middle-aged men, like myself, pootling around on a Sunday morning in their lycra, inspiring very few."
Obese-Jecty was congratulated on securing the debate by the Minister for Sport, Stephanie Peacock, who said she "sympathised" with his points about price hikes, but added it is "not for the government to intervene in such decisions". The debate was not well attended, with around 10 people present in the room.
WBD Sports Europe's senior vice president, Scott Young, has previously made clear that free-to-air live cycling is not on the broadcaster's "road map". He has also said that there are no concerns within WBD that putting the sport behind a paywall will stunt future fan growth.
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- Let's not forget that Pedersen won the Worlds in Yorkshire in true North of England conditions which are hell basically, when it's bad..
leedorney12-05-2025 - Vingo is the best Dane cyclist. He's the only one who beat Pogi two time in Tour de France.
James2631812-05-2025 - Its a pretty easy comparison, Jonas is the best. Look at his opponent the Best rider of his generation and 3rd best of all time Pogi who he has beaten twice in TDF. Pedersen cant even beat MVDP in monumentsabstractengineer12-05-2025
- Did the person who wrote this article catch any of last season and what happened? Cut the guy some slack and stop feeding of someone else’s hard times, the above article is pretty redundant.Jezla12-05-2025
- Hey, all great and deserving of respect but let’s not look at things too pinkly. He’s only just above Marc Hirschi in the UCI rankings. He’s had the potential to do this for the last 7-8 years, it’s just all come together at once, having his moment. Maybe he went on a secret HA camp :-) Seriously though, he’s NEVER said he doesn’t believe in it (challenge: find me that quote), he said he hates it in words that would get an F1 driver punished, and for the same reasons that his fellow countryman Jonas gets crucified for, being away from family (though given team budgets, there is an obvious solution to that). Besides, not very professional of media and pundits to linger on past out of date sayings, he’s more or less changed his mind in the meantime and is no longer categoric about refusing to try.Mistermaumau12-05-2025
- I don’t think that pays off in cycling, you never know when your next problem will happen, injury, illness, crash, and using so much time to prepare for a big goal risks being very disappointing in a short career.Mistermaumau12-05-2025
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"not for the government to intervene" until it's something that really matters..like Football. There's threat that the 6 nations Rugby could be behind the TNT Paywall by next year too, interventions are already underway and there's a furore in Scotland because the SNP "government" won't push to have international soccer on Free to Air, for them and the great unwashed thats a vote loser. If Governments have a sport portfolio making sport available for people to see on Free to Air should be a basic requirement
Obese is more than just slightly overweight ;-)
Football & Rugby have social implications that make them politically interesting, cricket, tennis and a few others are kept for more subtle reasons which we will call « tradition ». Road cycling in the UK is a relatively niche, foreign, recent concept, so easy to drop out of a list of priorities. If every sport got automatic right to « public « TV, there’d be little time for anything else. Am pretty sure if you asked the GP to list their preferred choices cycling would not even make the top 10, certainly under darts & snooker, athletics. There are no big British talents or rising stars participating (and Pidcock is too precarious for media marketing) so at the moment it can’t even be used to whip up national pride. It will come back once a new star is announced, or England decides (for everyone) they want to make a comeback in the EU ;-)