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Eurosport commentary

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Does anyone know who's doing the Tour for the english Eurosport? From what I've gathered from watching the Gruppeto and twitter (X), Matt Stephens will be on the motor in the 2nd week, while Blythe will do the 3rd week. Hatch returns as does Kelly. Dani Rowe will also join (never heard of her before). No mention of Kirby, Smith, Lloyd or McEwen.
Brian Smith doesn't get asked to the grand tours any more. I'm pretty sure that Kirby and Hatch will share lead comms again and that Lloyd and McEwen will be involved. McEwen certainly has better insights than Blythe but is another bantery bloke. It would be nice to think that we could have three weeks without any brown shorts references but somehow I doubt it.

Thankfully I will be in France for the first two weeks so will be able to enjoy Tommy V's contributions from the moto.
 
Eurosport Player disappears after TDF - HBO Max the more expensive alternative. From €39 to up to €228 a year

 
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Eurosport Player disappears after TDF - HBO Max the more expensive alternative. From €39 to up to €228 a year


Not that Eurosport Player is in any way fabulous, but the idea of having to subscribe to HBO Max really, really ticks me off.
 
But does better coverage equal more expensive coverage? I would reckon less people will be able to watch cycling now.

better coverage of the sport might just mean covering far more races, those that we watched via youtube last year for example, it doesnt mean necessarily super HD cameras for the TdF. and theres a cost associated to broadcast that stuff, they always claim like its 20k per day to get the plane in the air to transmit the pictures back live,

I mean thats the daft thing, Eurosport busy showing the French, the Spanish, the Italian nationals, all live, the Italians have got aerial cameras too doing their best giro ditalia impressions.

the British nationals will be on youtube, transmitted via a mobile phone on a patchy mobile phone network, because we cant afford (well we could but BC refuse to spend the money that way) to swanky live broadcast the stuff.

thats the crux of it, and its lucky we get any live coverage at all. I remember when Lizzie won her first nationals jersey, had to wait a week to watch the edited highlights just to see what Nicoles complaints were about.

will less people watch it ? or will more Discovery/MAX/etc subscribers tune in instead. Youve subscribed to watch House of the Dragons, but theres this sport everyone goes on about every July, maybe thats worth a look.
 
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That's the current "unsustainable" business model.
I'd argue the current model is most races are put on lose money, have bad or limited coverage and few sponsors as a result.

There are tons of sponsors out there, but few who see cycling as a way to promote their brand because the ROI doesn't add up for them because of the lack of exposure on TV it gives them

Look at Euro 2024, who on earth are Hisense? basically a Chinese Samsung make electrical tech stuff, they've paid millions to be involved in this tournament, just because they get massive exposure from it.

That same amount of money could probably have funded a WT men's team at the top level for 2 years at least, and yet we won't ever see Hisense sponsoring cycling.

We don't see Qatar Airways in cycling even though UAE as their rivals are.

Adidas, Aliexpress, Booking.com, FedEx, Mastercard, Coca Cola, Sony.

They're all spending millions more for tiny logos at a football tournament, when the same amount of money could get them title sponsorship of some of the biggest teams or races cycling has.

Cycling needs better coverage to attract those sponsors