This post is intended to both provide and ask for information.
As far as I know, there are three main outlets for televised road races in the USA. They are all web-based streaming services and they’re all reasonably priced (one is even free), and together, they seem to have fairly comprehensive offerings of televised races.
The Tour de France, the Vuelta España, the World Championships, the Santos Tour Down Under, and various ASO offerings (like Paris-Roubaix) are all streamed by NBC Sports Gold. Their calendar can be found at this link. Their subscriptions are annual, with the renewal date being just before the Tour de France. I believe they prorate subscriptions based on when in the year you purchase them.
FloBikes streams dozens and dozens of races each year. The service is part of a larger suite of channels that includes everything from basketball to marching band competitions to cheerleading. It is one of the few channels among those that is now only offering annual subscriptions (at US $150), monthly pricing no longer being available unless you were grandfathered in on that plan. FloBikes’ schedule, which takes its “subject to change” language seriously, can be found at this link. That schedule, as I just intimated, has frequent changes, though they’re usually to be found in the form of additions, not deletions. FloBikes biggest event of the year is probably the Giro d’Italia.
Finally, there’s one new to me, GCN (Global Cycling Network), which is a British outfit that utilizes the video streaming capabilities of YouTube and Facebook for their offerings. I only became aware of them in November, when I started watching cyclocross races for the first time. They put up a lot of videos—how to’s and race reports and top ten lists and just all kinds of things—and their announcers have more than once mentioned that they will have a “full slate” of road offerings this year, particularly on the women’s side. They have not, however, published a calendar of races they will stream in 2020. The only one I know of for sure was mentioned by a presenter in a news program, that being the 38th Vuelta a San Juan Internacional running from 26 January to 2 February. I reached out to GCN via multiple means seeking information about what other races they’ll stream, and finally heard from them via Facebook this morning. Their message read: “Hi Christopher, we hope to have this available soon but for the moment we can't publish a live schedule! There's plenty of racing coming up on the channel though so keep an eye out!"
As a side note, the amusingly designed steephill website usually lists the broadcasters of individual races, though the clamor of images and graphics on site makes it difficult to use.
The request for information bit is this: what have I missed? Also, has GCN let slip any other races that they’ll be streaming? Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne is notably absent from the FloBikes schedule this year (at least it so far), so I suppose that’s a possibility.
My hope is that GCN will pick up the French Cup races broadcast by L’Equipe.
Finally, here are the races that I’m reasonably sure will be available in the USA in January and February, along with which network is offering them.
Santos Tour Down Under (including the criterium on the 19th, I believe): NBC Gold
Vuelta a San Juan Internacional: GCN
Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race (women’s and men’s): FloBikes
Saudi Arabia Tour: FloBikes
Tour de La Province: FloBikes
Tour of Hainan: FloBikes
UAE Tour: FloBikes
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad: FloBikes
This list has some notable blanks in it. Races on the new ProTour level that are NOT included during January and February are the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, the PETRONAS Le Tour de Langkawi, the Tour of Oman, the Trofeo Laigueglia, the Clasica de Algeria, the Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta, and the Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol. I know I watched more than one of those last year on FloBikes, so hopefully either their calendar will be updated or GCN will pick them up (FloBikes had the San Juan race last year).
As far as I know, there are three main outlets for televised road races in the USA. They are all web-based streaming services and they’re all reasonably priced (one is even free), and together, they seem to have fairly comprehensive offerings of televised races.
The Tour de France, the Vuelta España, the World Championships, the Santos Tour Down Under, and various ASO offerings (like Paris-Roubaix) are all streamed by NBC Sports Gold. Their calendar can be found at this link. Their subscriptions are annual, with the renewal date being just before the Tour de France. I believe they prorate subscriptions based on when in the year you purchase them.
FloBikes streams dozens and dozens of races each year. The service is part of a larger suite of channels that includes everything from basketball to marching band competitions to cheerleading. It is one of the few channels among those that is now only offering annual subscriptions (at US $150), monthly pricing no longer being available unless you were grandfathered in on that plan. FloBikes’ schedule, which takes its “subject to change” language seriously, can be found at this link. That schedule, as I just intimated, has frequent changes, though they’re usually to be found in the form of additions, not deletions. FloBikes biggest event of the year is probably the Giro d’Italia.
Finally, there’s one new to me, GCN (Global Cycling Network), which is a British outfit that utilizes the video streaming capabilities of YouTube and Facebook for their offerings. I only became aware of them in November, when I started watching cyclocross races for the first time. They put up a lot of videos—how to’s and race reports and top ten lists and just all kinds of things—and their announcers have more than once mentioned that they will have a “full slate” of road offerings this year, particularly on the women’s side. They have not, however, published a calendar of races they will stream in 2020. The only one I know of for sure was mentioned by a presenter in a news program, that being the 38th Vuelta a San Juan Internacional running from 26 January to 2 February. I reached out to GCN via multiple means seeking information about what other races they’ll stream, and finally heard from them via Facebook this morning. Their message read: “Hi Christopher, we hope to have this available soon but for the moment we can't publish a live schedule! There's plenty of racing coming up on the channel though so keep an eye out!"
As a side note, the amusingly designed steephill website usually lists the broadcasters of individual races, though the clamor of images and graphics on site makes it difficult to use.
The request for information bit is this: what have I missed? Also, has GCN let slip any other races that they’ll be streaming? Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne is notably absent from the FloBikes schedule this year (at least it so far), so I suppose that’s a possibility.
My hope is that GCN will pick up the French Cup races broadcast by L’Equipe.
Finally, here are the races that I’m reasonably sure will be available in the USA in January and February, along with which network is offering them.
Santos Tour Down Under (including the criterium on the 19th, I believe): NBC Gold
Vuelta a San Juan Internacional: GCN
Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race (women’s and men’s): FloBikes
Saudi Arabia Tour: FloBikes
Tour de La Province: FloBikes
Tour of Hainan: FloBikes
UAE Tour: FloBikes
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad: FloBikes
This list has some notable blanks in it. Races on the new ProTour level that are NOT included during January and February are the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, the PETRONAS Le Tour de Langkawi, the Tour of Oman, the Trofeo Laigueglia, the Clasica de Algeria, the Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta, and the Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol. I know I watched more than one of those last year on FloBikes, so hopefully either their calendar will be updated or GCN will pick them up (FloBikes had the San Juan race last year).
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