Cycling on TV - discovery plus 2025 price hike

[eein]

Have been watching UCI cycling for many years, grand tours and other events. Most recently on discovery plus as this is the only option in the UK.

Just seen the Discovery plus price hike - essentially they are removing the subscription level that was basic TV plus basic sport, which included cycling for £7.99 a month. Now all sport is bundled in the the same tier which is £31.99 a month!

While this includes other premium sports like football, I suspect a huge number of cycling fans are not that in to football and likely do not want to line the pockets of overpaid, underperforming, badly behaved footballers.

I have therefore cancelled my subscription. For 2025 there's some highlights of grand tours on ITV/Quest, but they disappear for 2026. I'll be looking for other ways to get coverage, maybe via other country subscriptions, however that'll likely end up spending a lot of time on the VPN detection arms race.

Will be a shame for professional cycling as UK viewer numbers will plummet this year.

Has anyone else had to cancel? Or worked out a way to stream from overseas?

[HughG]

Looks like the coverage is going onto TNT, what used to be BT Sport. Through Virgin it can be added for £18/month but elsewhere seems to be £20-30.

[towser44]

Ugh, so that means Eurosport is now behind a more expensive pay wall? I love Eurosport for cycling, World Superbikes and British Superbikes, but I wouldn't pay £30 per month

[towser44]

Basically Eurosport is no more then according to Discovery Plus, that'll kill a few sports if not put on Quest or summat for free. Buggers!

[towser44]

Just the UK and Ireland too, Eurosport continues in 50 European countries. It says Moto GP sprint aces will be live on Quest for free, so hopefully they'll put some cycling and Bsb on too

[eein]

The full email I got as an existing subscriber:

Upcoming changes to your discovery+ subscription - please read carefully
Hello <name>,

Thank you for being a discovery+ subscriber.

On 28 February 2025, the Eurosport and TNT Sports brands will be brought together, with all sports content available in one single destination via TNT Sports. This in turn means the discovery+ Standard plan & Eurosport linear channels are closing.

What about my subscription?

On your next renewal date on or after today, the price of your plan will decrease to the price of the Basic plan at £3.99/month. From 28 February, Sports content, including Eurosport 1 & 2, will no longer be included in your plan. From your next renewal on or after 28 February, you will continue to renew on the Basic plan unless you cancel in your account before that renewal.

If your plan was previously ad-free in on-demand content, on-demand content in the Basic plan contains ads.

To continue to access sports content, you can either upgrade your plan to the Premium (incl. TNT Sports) plan before 28 February 2025, or resubscribe to Premium after this date. If you are a direct customer you can upgrade via your account settings. If you are an app store customer you can upgrade via the app store unless you subscribe via Fire TV or Google. If you subscribe via Fire TV or Google, you will need to wait for your subscription to end before you can subscribe to the Premium plan.

If you've already cancelled your subscription when you get this notice then you don't need to take any further action. If you have cancelled but later change your mind, the changes above will also apply to you.

As always, you can contact us, plus find answers to your questions, in our Help Centre. and we hope you continue to enjoy discovery+.

Thanks,

The discovery+ Team


Their page about the changes:
https://support.discoveryplus.com/gb/Answer/Detail...

These are now the subscription packages offered on their direct website:


Interestingly it does not explicitly mention non grand tour cycling. Slim hope this might appear somewhere else, however I suspect that's just because they've not listed everything in the sports (eg Dakar coverage is not mentioned either).

If non-grand tour cycling continued to be available on the basic tier then I'd stick with that and just find the grand tours elsewhere.

[andySC]

I’ve cancelled my Discovery+ subscription. Spring Sunday afternoons watching the classics has been something I’ve done for years. I’m not going to pay £31 per month to watch one race per week during the Spring & the 3 Grand Tours later in the year . I don’t watch any other sports so it’s poor value for me. The other kicker is this is the last year ITV will be showing the Tour de France. Hopefully highlights will remain on Quest & remain free to watch.

Edited by andySC on Wednesday 29th January 20:30

[JEA1K]

Yep, I got the email Tuesday am. In about 8 years its gone from:

Eurosport Player
Eurosport app (with subsciption)
GCN Plus (with subscription)
Discovery Plus (with subscription)
Now TNT woth a 350% increase if you just watch cycling like me

I've gone down the dark route of a dodgy firestick, I'm not going to pay £370 a year to subsidise the cost of a ton of ste I have no interested in. In fact, I've now cancelled my Disney+ as well as all the content is on the Firestick app now, so for £83 a year (£7 a month) vs £526 (£44 a month) for new Discovery with TNT & Disney+.

I'm not sure us cycling fans have just 'fallen between the cracks' or we're genuinley being exploited/gouged by the globalsation of more services ... either way, I'm done with it, I'll watch it and feel zero guilt for shareholder profits.

[P-Jay]

It's sad for me.

It's a massive oversimplification, but Football ruins everything ha ha.

It was the same with F1 years ago, BBC lost it to Sky, that sucked, but Sky wanted £10 a month and that was okay, but a few years later it go thrown into the full 'Sports' package for £40 or whatever, The Premier League TV rights are worth millions, or billions I've no idea really but it's a LOT.

So, for the 6 UCI DH races I watch a year, TNT want £384 and there's no free to view option.

With the UCI and Discovery or whoever cutting the number of teams and riders, losing Rob Warner and whatever else, I can see DH splitting from the UCI and jumping back in bed with Redbull, they already have a modest alternative series.

[Ladders]

The only positive I can see is that I can finally bin off Virgin TV and their excruciating price increases if I can't watch Eurosport on there anymore.

[JEA1K]

P-Jay said:

It's sad for me.

It's a massive oversimplification, but Football ruins everything ha ha.

It was the same with F1 years ago, BBC lost it to Sky, that sucked, but Sky wanted £10 a month and that was okay, but a few years later it go thrown into the full 'Sports' package for £40 or whatever, The Premier League TV rights are worth millions, or billions I've no idea really but it's a LOT.

Same for me, as soon as I stopped watching football, the sole reason for my Sky subscription was for F1 (cycling was free in Eurosport) so I sacked it off and haven't watched a race since.

[TheDrownedApe]

My mate subscribes to one of those "dodgy" streaming services via his firestick. The cost, my mate has told me, is £50 a year and that gets him every sports channel available in the UK and Ireland, browsed like a normal tv guide. He has invited me around to watch the cycling content on TNT and It saved him the bother of paying for F1 during the racing months and has saved him money.

The only negative is you can only watch it live

[JEA1K]

TheDrownedApe said:

My mate subscribes to one of those "dodgy" streaming services via his firestick. The cost, my mate has told me, is £50 a year and that gets him every sports channel available in the UK and Ireland, browsed like a normal tv guide. He has invited me around to watch the cycling content on TNT and It saved him the bother of paying for F1 during the racing months and has saved him money.

The only negative is you can only watch it live

On mine there is an ability to watch 'some' catch up content (I say some as I've only tried a few so far). You can go onto the day and then scroll though the time in chronological order to find a race.

[eein]

I also see it as a big loss to the cycling supplier industry, which is currently in a lot of trouble with many companies shutting down.

I (and my missus) am considering buying multiple new bikes over the next 1-3 years, eventually having got to the place (age / fitness / geography) in life we'd use them and can afford to buy 'uber bikes'. While I'll do my research and look for a good deal, I am absolutely going to be swayed by the brands I see being used to race. No longer watching, I'll probably end up with a(nother) Boradman or a Ribble or something.

[eein]

P-Jay said:

With the UCI and Discovery or whoever cutting the number of teams and riders, losing Rob Warner and whatever else, I can see DH splitting from the UCI and jumping back in bed with Redbull, they already have a modest alternative series.

I hadn't thought of the RedBull angle. Would be great if they picked up a UCI broadcast deal. I've been watching more and more content on their streaming app on my various android TVs.

Even though their current app is free, I'd happy pay something, say up to £10 a month. Maybe even a touch more knowing they plough loads of cash into cycling and many of the other 'secondary' sports and events I like to watch.

[P-Jay]

eein said:

P-Jay said:

With the UCI and Discovery or whoever cutting the number of teams and riders, losing Rob Warner and whatever else, I can see DH splitting from the UCI and jumping back in bed with Redbull, they already have a modest alternative series.

I hadn't thought of the RedBull angle. Would be great if they picked up a UCI broadcast deal. I've been watching more and more content on their streaming app on my various android TVs.

Even though their current app is free, I'd happy pay something, say up to £10 a month. Maybe even a touch more knowing they plough loads of cash into cycling and many of the other 'secondary' sports and events I like to watch.

No chance UCI will work with RB until the deal with Discovery is done and even then, there was so much bad blood over with the DH. Pro DH is a small world.

I can imagine at least a competitor series starting though. They cut so much out of the WC series, and putting it all behind an expensive paywall is going to be very painful for Bike Cos. Downhill isn't really a big niche with riders anymore, for a long time it has been the "F1 of MTB" the best riders on the best custom bikes to sell the brand and lots of more practical bikes. $1m+ a year for a factory team to race 9 events globally, if the TV audience is even smaller, however much the organisers are making from TV Subs, I can't see it making much sense for the brands.

[missing the VR6]

I cancelled my Discovery+ subscription the other day after hearing this news. As a MTB guy I didn't begrudge the £6.99 a month compared to Red Bulls £0 but £31 is too much to watch 7-8 races a year. I can't see that many MTBers paying for it, given how few races there are, I can see roadies as they've got many more events.

Pretty sure WBD will be the death of MTB.

[okgo]

I’ll probably just pay it, or get a dodgy fire stick as above.

Never thought I’d say it but bring back the Sky monopoly on TV, fill everything on Sky was cheaper than the billion direct debits I now have.

[outnumbered]

okgo said:

I’ll probably just pay it, or get a dodgy fire stick as above.

Never thought I’d say it but bring back the Sky monopoly on TV, fill everything on Sky was cheaper than the billion direct debits I now have.

I will also probably end up stumping up for it (although a straw poll amongst a group of mates who currently subscribe to the £6.99 option suggests I'm the only one who's considering it). Might then cancel after the Road WCs and pick up again for Belgian races in the spring. It's not so much that I can't afford to pay for it all year, just that I totally begrudge doing so when I know I'm mainly paying for football which I absolutely fking hate with a passion.

[Johno]

outnumbered said:

okgo said:

I’ll probably just pay it, or get a dodgy fire stick as above.

Never thought I’d say it but bring back the Sky monopoly on TV, fill everything on Sky was cheaper than the billion direct debits I now have.

I will also probably end up stumping up for it (although a straw poll amongst a group of mates who currently subscribe to the £6.99 option suggests I'm the only one who's considering it). Might then cancel after the Road WCs and pick up again for Belgian races in the spring. It's not so much that I can't afford to pay for it all year, just that I totally begrudge doing so when I know I'm mainly paying for football which I absolutely fking hate with a passion.

We're the same in our household, the knowledge that our subs prop up sports we have zero interest in is not one I find easy to swallow.

I pay MotoGP directly for their coverage, same for WSBK, at least the funds go to the sport itself. But now having to consider cancelling those, to prop up paying for TNT Sports whose coverage I find appalling of all sports. No interest in football, snooker etc etc ....

But how else to watch the cyclocross, MTB and the roads season. I could live with ITV for the Tour, no issue. But the spring classics and a lot of other races we watch we'll miss if we don't sign up.

It does feel like we're being gouged for a sport we simply can't watch elsewhere. Frightening when you look at the differences by country. We've probably had it soo good over the last few years, that this feels outrageous in comparison.