THE GREAT PAYWALL PRICE-OUT

With the cost of watching live cycling set to skyrocket, Tom Thewlis asks why this is happening now, and assesses the impact on fans and on the future of the sport

- Tom Thewlis

British cycling fans were left stunned by the recent announcement that, from the end of this month, the cost of live racing coverage will more than quadruple. From 28 February, Eurosport in the UK-a staple for cycling coverage since 1989 - will be merged with TNT Sports, hiking the monthly subscription fee from £6.99 to £30.99. That's a 343% increase, with the annual cost soaring to £371.88. Adding to the pain, 2025 marks the final year of freeto-air Tour de France coverage after more than 25 years.

The decision by Warner Bros Discovery, TNT's parent company, impacts viewers in both the UK and Ireland, including those with Sky and Virgin Media packages. Viewers have reacted to the move with frustration, disbelief and outright fury as they have begun to ponder the implications to their finances - and whether they will have to forgo watching their favourite sport. Keen to find out how this would affect your viewing, we ran a survey on cyclingweekly.​com, which yielded nearly 1,000 responses. Just 2.5% of you indicated a willingness to sign up for the TNT Sports subscription, with 9% currently undecided.

"It's a disgrace," said one respondent, James Ashberry. "In our house, we recently went through all our subscriptions and services to see what we could cut back on, and made some significant savings. We even cancelled the milkman because it's more expensive than walking to the shop. I just can't justify this." Almost 90% of those polled were categorical that they would not sign up to the new £30.99 per month offering. "My interest in road cycling was sparked by casually watching the TdF and Olympics in 2012," said respondent Simon Arnot. "No free-to-air or low-cost coverage is going to push people away."