On the escape collective comments, someone (from Aussie it seems), has talked about two work arounds.
"1. Connect my NordVPN to Singapore, and take up a StayLive.io subscription (9AUD a month). It’s got everything aside from ASO races. I already had an Aussie-based subscription with StayLive, and didn’t even need to create a new account: just setup VPN and buy a monthly sub. Did some test streaming last night and it worked a treat.
2. I also tested creating an Italian-based AppleID whilst connected to Italy, and downloaded the Eurosport App. Created a log in and although my Italian isn’t great, I could work out what I was doing. Again, streaming worked well, and would cost about 11AUD a month."
I have to think this will throttle down viewership to a large degree. If this sample (taken from uber bike nerds on a bike training forum) has a high percentage saying “I’m not paying that”, I can only guess the marginal fan will disappear altogether. I’m in the US, our options are terrible here too.
Ultimately this has to be a commercial decision by WBD. If we leave aside their PR/spin BS about attracting new fans by putting it on after soccer for the errant nonsense that it is, then purely from a subscription point, they need to convert 1 out of 4 ish current subscribers to the new package cost for it to be viable. As you say, based on the reaction of this forum, this seems a stretch. I’m fortunate in that I’m in Europe and am able to watch most races live, mostly in full if I want to, and even then I’m seriously thinking about the whole thing’s value. They’ll get six months a year max out of me if I do subscribe.
Given all that, maybe the cost of running/maintaining separate Eurosport channels/platforms etc is a lot higher than I would have thought? I have no idea, but it must be a factor in their decision.
In any case, the whole thing sucks, and the new dawn of cycling TV that GCN+ brought about seems to be something we’ll now ultimately regard as a historical blip. It was fun whilst it lasted.
I’m kinda in this boat the more I reflect on it - however the full app including all sport isn’t even available in Ireland (yet) anyway. I already have Sports Extra on NowTV, for €15 a month, which I presume may have the big races live (it’s only TNT 1-4 though). €15+€6.99 is still a fair bit of the TNT subscription even if they make it available.
For moving wallpaper, I think youtube of classic races will be my thing!
Paying the extra money to watch isn’t a problem but more of a principle thing. The previous price structure seemed fair and I was happy with what I got, but over the course of the year it’s more than what I pay for my mobile phone a month and more than my car insurance.
Also, I don’t want to pay to watch other sports, I would rather have a cycling only option.
I was wondering why the UK and Europe are being treated differently. Perhaps the UK viewers are the canary being lowered into the mine, if it comes up breathing then the same plan will be rolled out more widely?
I’ve also read about Eurosport (+?) in Germany being an option.
I don’t want all the other sports or channels, just want the three grand tours, and ideally some spring stuff. If there was a $50 pay per view for the whole of each grand tour, I’d take that.
I’ll probably spend some time this weekend exploring the Singapore and Eurosport options.
That’ll be my benchmark. If I can do Eurosport or the Singapore one for 6 months for less than three 30 quid subs to Discovery+, I will. Otherwise it’ll be 90 quid for the three months I want. A bit of a shock compared to last year when I ran d+ for maybe 6 months for 1/2 what they want for 3 months this year.
OK, maybe a bit niche, but I’ve just been alerted to this, and it might help a few people out. If you’re in the UK and on a mobile contract with EE, TNT sports is available as a mobile add-on. I guess the price/availability may differ depending on your contract, but this is what it’s showing for me:
As a BT Broadband customer, I can get TNT sports for £20 per month. As you say, still a big rise in price, but something I can maybe justify with the amount of cycling I watch.
Also, when cancelling my current Discovery+ subscription, I’ve got TNT sports for £17 per month until October.
My plan is to then pause (cancel) my subscription until reactivating in April next year when the cycling season starts up again.
This year I’ve just given up on all the expensive, disappointing fractured streaming services and am just watching everything for free with VPN on https://sporza.be/
Turns out you can learn enough Flemish to follow what is going on quite easily since 90% of it is just the names of riders, the name of the climb they’re on, and a few important words like “attack” and “dropped”.
Belgium is carrying the weight of the cycling world on their shoulders.
Back in the late 90’s, I could subscribe to RAI through my Dish Network sub. I would get it for MSR and then again for the Giro. NOTHING better than Italian commentary!! But like you, I was able to understand most of what was going on relatively quickly. Watch the visual, listen for names, learn a few key words, etc.
I may have to give Sporza a shot for grins and giggles.
I’m still using Tiz with an ad blocker. I usually just download the full race file after the fact rather than try streaming with them.
The only thing I miss from GCN is the Breakaway with Orla. I’d only watch them for maybe ten minutes but I enjoyed her outfit of the day as she’s my Irish crush.
I’ve had to unsubscribe from the TNT YT channel, as their approach of creating ~100 “different” videos of the same day’s racing (eg. M-SR) has made their content output akin to spam…
I manually review the channel’s list of videos to see which of the ~100 looks like it might be the best of the bunch, but then just watch Lanterne Rouge instead. This also makes me feel better, doing my bit to hopefully see TNT Cycling eventually fail so that one day we can go back to being able to watch full races at an appropriate price again without being extorted
so that one day we can go back to being able to watch full races at an appropriate price again without being extorted 