This week marks a momentous development in terms of cycling on TV in the UK. Eurosport is about to be no more, and you’re about to have to pay a whole lot more, if you want to keep watching anything that’s not the Tour de France.
On Friday, the lights go off and Eurosport will cease to broadcast on UK television, after more than 35 years. Cycling will move over to TNT Sports, which is going to require a more expensive television package or streaming subscription.
343% is the price hike if you stream cycling online – everything will still be available as it was on Discovery+ but access shoots up from £6.99 a month to £30.99 a month.
The news has created something of a storm, with controversy surrounding the amount of cash fans are now being asked to stump up. It comes hot on the heels of the announcement that the Tour de France will be disappearing from free-to-air TV from 2026, with TNT Sports / Warner Bros. Discovery set to be the only place you can watch cycling in the UK from next year.
It's no exaggeration to say that these developments will have profound impacts on the sport as a whole over the coming years, but what about the here and now? What exactly is happening? Why is it happening? And what can you do about it?
When will Eurosport disappear?
Eurosport will be gone from your screens at the turn of February 27 to February 28. The schedules have been changing around a little but as it stands, the latest is that you’ll have a couple of extra hours, with programming ceasing at 2am GMT on Friday February 28.
The last race on the listings is a cycling event, with a re-run of stage 2 of O Gran Camiño from 1am-2am on Eurosport 1. After that: “This channel has closed”.
What is TNT Sports?
This is going to involve a fair few acronyms, so bear with us. TNT Sports is a TV network that was born in the middle of 2023, but that was effectively a rebrand from BT Sport. BT Sport was created by British Telecom in 2013 in an apparent bid to boost its telephone and internet businesses by bundling with an attractive TV package - known trendily then as a ’quad-play’. It stormed aggressively into the competitive football rights market to achieve this.
In 2023 BT Group partnered with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), itself a merger between two broadcasting giants, and BT Sport became TNT Sports, with four linear channels and six more digital interactive (red button) channels. TNT Sports broadcasts a range of sports, with Champions League and Premier League football being the prime assets that explain the high price tag.
Why is Eurosport being taken over by TNT Sports?
Eurosport was bought by Discovery in 2015, and became part of WBD when Warner Bros and Discovery merged in 2022. Consolidation was inevitable, with the whole organisation at one point having four different streaming platforms showing cycling: Max, Discovery+, Eurosport Player, and GCN+. Eurosport Player was shut early in 2023, GCN+ went later that year.
With Eurosport already living on Discovery’s platform online, and TNT Sports having more channels than it really knows what to do with, Eurosport has been on borrowed time for a while.
How do I get TNT Sports?
To get the TNT Sports channels on your TV, you’ll need an appropriate TV package with a provider such as Sky, Virgin, or EE. You can add TNT Sports to a package with one of these companies from £20-£30 a month depending on the provider. You can also watch TNT Sports online via the Discovery+ streaming platform – more on that below.
Are there any cheap deals for TNT Sports?
Check with each provider mentioned above for their latest prices and offers. Right now there are no discounts, as such, but you can get some decent deals by… spending more (that’s the world we live in). The cheapest way to get TNT Sports itself is to find one of those ‘quad-play’ packages that bundles it into a broadband and phone contract. You can get some decent value all around, but this obviously means a bigger outlay and an overhaul to your technological set-up.
Can I still stream cycling on Discovery+?
Yes, and that’s the thing that’s not really changing (apart from the elephant in the room in terms of the price tag). The cycling rights on offer for 2025 haven’t gone anywhere and nothing in the user experience will be changing - just log in to Discovery+ and click play on the race that’s on.
That said, WBD have just revealed they’re looking to launch Max in the UK in 2026, so everything could change again next year! Max costs €10.99 a month in Eurosport’s other European territories, or $19.98 in the US (for fewer races) – again, cycling is bundled in with other sports and entertainment.
Are there any discounts for Discovery+?
No, it’s a £30.99 a month flat flee and there’s not even the option for an annual plan, which most streamers will offer at a discount on the monthly rate if you pay upfront. There have been anecdotal reports in recent weeks of users going to cancel their Discovery+ subscriptions and suddenly being offered a 50% discount on the new £30.99 price for a limited time. Give it a try.
Why has the price gone up so much?
In short, because BT/WBD have spent so much acquiring football rights, which come at eye-watering costs. Football fans are used to being charged this sort of subscription, but it has come as a shock to cycling fans. If you love football (and other sports), great! The thing is, cycling is a bit of a niche sport and many fans don’t. WBD will argue they can grow cycling out of that niche by putting it in front of their existing audience. Hardcore cycling fans will feel they’re being used to foot the bill for something they didn’t order.
How many races do TNT Sports / Discovery+ show?
You can argue with the price, but not the coverage, which is comprehensive and well-produced. You get every single WorldTour and Women’s WorldTour race among more than 1000 broadcasts on more than 300 different days. It’s hard to think of many road races you’d want to watch but can’t, and they also do extensive mountain bike, track, and cyclocross.
One question is how much of this makes it to TV. Everything will be available online but when it comes to linear TV the cycling is at the mercy of the scheduling gods, so clashes with other sports mean it might be sidelined.
Where else can I watch live cycling in the UK?
ITV for the Tour de France, and that’s it. Even that won’t be the case for long - ITV is pulling out of cycling in 2026, so the Tour will be gone from free-to-air TV in the UK for the first time in 40 years. That creates a whole other debate - for a whole other article - about accessibility how the sport captures its next generation of fans.
There was talk in the TNT announcement of providing free cycling coverage…
That’s true, but it has nothing to do with live cycling. Quest is a free-to-air channel owned by Discovery, and WBD plan to use it for select race highlights, plus a new magazine show called ‘The Ultimate Cycling Show’. You can watch Quest on Freeview TV in the UK, and you can stream online for free by creating a Discovery+ account (without taking out a subscription). As it stands, highlights of the Giro, Vuelta, and Paris-Roubaix will go out on Quest, but don’t hold your breath for live racing.
Is the same thing happening elsewhere in Europe?
Not for the time being. Eurosport as a TV channel will continue to operate in much of Europe, where TNT Sports doesn’t exist. In Europe, cycling streaming has been split between Max and Discovery+ for a few years, but WBD have been steadily moving most countries over to Max. The standard rate for Max is €10.99 a month but there’s still some discrepancy out there – Germany is on Discovery+ for €4.99 a month for pretty much all the cycling you could ever want (salt to the wounds of UK customers).
Will a VPN be useful for watching cycling?
A VPN will let you watch your usual cycling streaming services anywhere in the world, bypassing any broadcaster geo-restrictions. Back in the days of Eurosport Player, you could stream cycling anywhere in Europe on the same log-in, but a VPN from a good provider such as NordVPN is a simple and relatively cheap way to watch cycling on the move. It also protects you when streaming content online, as it is essentially internet security software, and it'll help you stream in the best quality possible as it make you immune from ‘ISP throttling’, where internet providers deliberately alter your connection speeds based on usage.
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