This feature originally appeared in our Cycling Weekly’s Review of the Year on 18 December 2025. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.
It’s 5:57pm in south London, 12 September 2005, and the shadows are lengthening at the Oval. Steve Harmison bowls the final ball of the men’s Ashes; Justin Langer misjudges it, the ball glances off him, runs away to the boundary for four leg byes, and the umpires call stumps. England fans launch into wild celebration, having won the Ashes for the first time in 18 years – and at that exact same moment, live Test cricket disappears from UK free-to-air television.
The consequences were almost immediate: viewing figures collapsed – from a peak of 8.4 million viewers during that 2005 Ashes to struggling for a single million – and cricket slipped from national conversation to something closer to a niche interest.
From next year, ITV will no longer televise the Tour, the exclusive UK rights having been sold to Warner Bros Discovery, parent company of TNT Sports. Earlier in the year, the cost of watching all the other big races jumped from £6.99 per month on Discovery+ to £30.99 on TNT Sports – a sharp rise that echoes cricket’s slide into subscription-only (relative) obscurity. The parallel isn’t perfect, but the warning is hard to ignore: when access narrows, audiences shrink, and a sport begins to slip from the national consciousness.
Turning off
A recent survey by Cycling Weekly revealed the stark reality: 71% of respondents told us they watched the Tour on ITV. Of those 1,273 people, 1,120 said they would not subscribe to TNT Sports to watch the race live in 2026 (and almost half said they’d never paid to watch cycling on TV). That’s 88%, an overwhelming majority of TV-watching cycling fans in the UK.
If they keep their word and refuse to stump up for a TNT subscription, they won’t be watching the Tour next summer. What then for the future of the sport? It’s a disturbing prospect.
The average cycling fan’s mood on this matter is dour. One commented to CW: “Terrible. Shocking. Saddening. Greedy. So bad for our sport.” Another: “I have been watching the Tour since Greg LeMond’s days. I can’t afford to keep watching now though. Maybe I’ll go out for a ride more often.”
Ex-ITV pundit and former pro David Millar told me earlier this year: “A whole generation is going to lose the Tour because they’re not going to buy a subscription.” His colleague, Ned Boulting, echoed the sentiment: “I wish TNT all the success in bringing the Tour de France to the widest possible audience. That’s really important for the health of the sport in our country. But I have my doubts. It’s not so much how many people are willing, it’s how many people are able to pay the extra.”
Cycling is not cricket. It is a far smaller sport, with a much smaller audience. If cricket – with its large and largely affluent fanbase – has suffered from not being on TV, pushed to the margins, what hope does cycling have?
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.
A petition urging the UK government to legislate to keep the Tour de France on free-to-air TV gained over 18,000 signatures – but went unheeded.
TNT future
The removal of free Tour de France coverage comes hot on the heels of the closure of Eurosport, and the axing of the cheap Discovery+ subscription, replaced by a single option: £30.99 a month for TNT Sports. There might be more cycling available on live TV than ever, but only for those who are able and willing to pay for it.
TNT has trumpeted its broadcasting of every WorldTour and Women’s WorldTour race, and almost every moment of the Grand Tours, but it remains too expensive for many. The only professional races that were free to watch live on TV in the UK this year were the men’s and women’s Tours of Britain, and the World Championships.
Despite paying more to watch cycling, new subscribers have found the coverage unimproved. There are a few new features – post-race analysis in The Breakaway, green screens and roving reporters beaming live interviews to the studio – but there has been no step change justifying the higher price. Besides, the respondents of our survey told us they didn’t want better programming, only a cheaper subscription.
It was salt in the wounds for fans when, out of the blue, TNT scrapped the ad-free streaming option before the Tour de France. Instead, a new split-screen option presented a Hobson’s choice between a worse viewing experience and watching the adverts. The ad-free steam has not returned.
As one survey respondent put it: “I have always paid to avoid the adverts, but I was aghast to have to sit through adverts, even though paying for the ‘full’ package.” It may be another example of ‘enshittification’ – Cory Doctorow’s phrase describing how, once a company has captured paying customers, its loyalty switches to its advertisers.
The latest Ashes series is currently underway in Australia, broadcast in the UK by TNT Sports – and the reaction from cricket fans feels familiar. Coverage is widely viewed as a step down, with fewer pundits than before, and cycling commentator Rob Hatch repurposed to call the action. This is no criticism of Hatch, who is knowledgeable and professional, but it underlines the sense that subscribers are paying more for less.
Ultimately, people are already watching less live cycling in the UK, and the long-term picture is deeply concerning: with fewer casual viewers stumbling across the sport, its ability to grow is seriously compromised.
As Matt Rendell, formerly of ITV, put it: “I don’t really see how it grows from behind a paywall because, you know, people aren’t going to be glimpsing it out of the corner of their eye.” Race organisers, governing bodies and broadcasters may want to reflect on one statistic above all: 79% of our survey respondents said they have watched less cycling since the TNT shake-up. Unless something changes, that number is only going to rise.
Free-to-air cycling gone for good?
While it very much is the end for ITV’s Tour de France coverage, and TNT Sports doesn’t look like giving up the rights any time soon – its deal runs until 2030. However, there are green shoots and alternatives. From next year, Ned Boulting, David Millar and Lizzie Deignan will be present on the roads of France with NSF Live, a new free audio and video show throughout the race. Similar to how cricket’s going behind a paywall forced people back to listening to radio coverage, cycling fans may elect to tune in aurally – or so Boulting hopes.
Separately, with the 2027 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift beginning in the UK, race director Christian Prudhomme has made encouraging noises about at least those stages being broadcast on free-to-air TV. Then again, if the race disappears from free TV immediately after the Grand Départ, it won’t be much of a sugar coating on the bitter pill. Respondents to our survey have turned to highlights on YouTube, VPNs to access free coverage overseas, and CW news reports to fill the gap.
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