I love McEwen commentary. What the heck?!
For those of us in the States still stuck with the barely listenable NBC crew, it was a great alternative to hear him and Matthew Keenan cover TdF (among other events).
Just finished watching the Aussie Nationals and literally thought: “ah, nice to hear mcewan and keenan back again. This is awesome”.
I guess less than awesome now.
GCN+ and a VPN is a good option imo. More races available and the Eurosport crew is pretty good.
Saw this yesterday….horrific decision. McEwen was a great commentator. He and Keenan could effortlessly announce a full stage of the Tour and it never felt repetitive or forced.
And I was never a fan of his when he was riding, so that says something about his announcing skills. 
Totally. Especially early parts of a 5 hr long stage, and I’m on the trainer. Whereas ordinarily I would skip ahead, if they are calling the action and I’m on Zwift for however long, it’s actually quite fun. Really good team.
Yes, and I have those as well. Some of the GCN+ (and Eurosport) folks are fine. But if a network drops a commentator, unless another one picks him up, you can have all the streaming services in the world but it won’t make a difference.
What’s not clear, does “axed” mean that he was in a contract and they’ve chosen to terminate it early? OR did his contract simply not get renewed. Those are two very different things.
This (at the bottom of article).
Rereading the article it seems like the latter;
“While his contract has come to an end, we thank Robbie for all that he’s brought to the role during his time with us.”
I’m not US and I don’t know the guy, but over here “exploring a different approach” is code for we’re-getting-rid-before-the-real-news-breaks. I’d expect to hear something unsanitary in the conning months.
Some of the comments on the other sites indicated that it might be a move towards diversifying their commentator team.
One memorable downside of the virus thing the world has been dealing with was tuning in to TdF and NOT hearing Matt and Robbie… Hopefully this contact “end” does not rule him out of working TdF again… Hoping?..
Yes I think this is probably a part of it. Cost might also come into it - Robbie lives on the Gold Coast in Qld so presumably has to be flown to Melbourne for each commentating gig. SBS is a public broadcaster and has limited funds - though the number of Zwift ads they run must bring in some cash!
I think it’s a terrible decision though. Lots of ex-pros go into commentating, but not a lot of them are so good at it. He really grew into the role.
Love McEwen as a commentator. A couple years back watched practically the entire TdF while on the trainer. Earlier in the race he and Keenan (I think) were talking up how Warren Barguil’s stated ambition was to be a used car salesman after retiring from cycling.
Days later, camera zeroes in on barguil riding and chatting with some other guy. McEwen just deadpans on cue, “Hey, wanna buy a car?” I can’t remember laughing as hard while riding as I did in that moment. It was brilliant.
Clearly they want someone that costs less money