From Newsgroup: uk.rec.cycling


rCLFeels like cycling coverage is about to go back into the dark agesrCY: Cycling fans blast rCLabsolute disgrace and disasterrCY as Eurosport Player set to shut down after Tour de France

Cycling fans in parts of Europe, the US, and Australia were greeted today
with the news theyrCOve been dreading since the demise of the GCN+ app late last year, after it was revealed today that EurosportrCOs Premium
subscription service is set to close down the day after the Tour de France ends, with subscribers told to instead sign up for Discovery+ and HBO Max rCo and pay a significantly larger sum to watch live cycling.

According to an email sent to a Eurosport Premium subscriber today, the Eurosport Player is to be discontinued from 22 July, the day after the
TourrCOs Nice finale, but before the Olympic Games and the Tour de France Femmes.

Instead, viewers in certain parts of Europe, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, have been recommended to subscribe to streaming platform Max, while fans in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and Italy are told to find their cycling on Discovery+.

As noted at the time of GCN+rCOs demise last year, the end of cyclingrCOs first, extremely popular dedicated streaming app marked part of Warner
Bros. DiscoveryrCOs plans to consolidate all its content rCo from all of its sports to documentaries, films, and reality series rCo on one platform.

This weekrCOs news is further evidence of that shift, it seems, and means for many cycling fans having to pay a higher price for content they donrCOt actually want rCo with one European viewer quoting re415 a month for a HBO subscription with the sport add-on package rCo when, just 12 months ago, they could subscribe to an app with only wall-to-wall cycling coverage (of
course, all of that coverage still exists on Discovery and HBO, itrCOs just mixed in with everything else).

Which hasnrCOt gone down too well with armchair viewers who predicted that DiscoveryrCOs rCycontent consolidationrCO would not work in the favour of cycling
fans, and who now fear a return to the circa 2010 era of limited live
coverage for reasonable prices and dodgy streams.

(Although it must be noted that for some viewers, especially in the UK, the price doesnrCOt change much, if it all, if they change from Eurosport to Discovery+. For the moment, anyway.)

rCLThis is an absolute disgrace and a disaster for every cycling fan.
Terrible decision,rCY said the fan behind the popular Cycling Out of Context account.

rCLTerrible. ItrCOs already impossible to get the Eurosport coverage here in Australia without a UK/Euro credit card. The sport is just going to lose
people permanently because of this,rCY added Carlos.

rCLFeels like cycling is about to go back into the dark ages in terms of coverage. This sucks a whole bunch. Why must broadcasters do this to all sports?rCY added former cycling journo and Jayco press officer Sadhbh OrCOShea.

rCLWerCOll look back and talk about the cycling season of rCy22 and rCy23 like old
hippies talk about the summer of love... Cycling nirvana did exist and it
was GCN+ and Eurosport Player,rCY wrote cycling cartoon guy Rich Mitch.

rCLBig Cycling has fully eaten itself and is now just picking at the bones of what it was.rCY

Even current pros were getting involved in the debate.

rCLLet the return to Tiz commence,rCY said Larry Warbasse, referring to the online streaming site favoured by Americans in the pre-GCN days.

And the answer?

rCLVPN and watch every race live on either Sporza or RAI,rCY said Philip Malcolm.

<https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-21-june-2024-308991#live-blog-item-58761>
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