Watching cycling on TV has become prohibitive in the UK and Warner Bros is being accused of price gouging

In the United Kingdom, fans are up in arms against Warner, the main rights holder for this country through TNT Sports, whose subscription costs 30.99 pounds per month, about 37 euros.

Watching cycling on TV becomes a luxury item in the UK

Warner Bros - Discovery, owner of some of the most important channels and platforms, has sparked outrage among sports fans in Great Britain after its decision to close Eurosport UK and move cycling broadcasts to the TNT Sports platform, a service that costs almost 400 pounds per year, almost 480 euros.

Such has been the uproar caused that Warner Bros - Discovery has been reported to the Competition and Markets Authority accusing them of abusing their monopolistic position.

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A situation similar to what has occurred in Spain, albeit to a lesser extent, after the integration of Eurosport into the Max platform, so that many competitions, for example many of the Cyclocross World Cup races of the current season, have only been broadcast through this platform; or the XCO World Cup events that, in just a few years, have gone from being able to be watched for free on RedBull TV, to conventional Eurosport channels, and finally, to only being available on the Max platform.

A multi-content platform, mainly series and movies, which, in its subscription option that includes its sports channels, has a price of 44.99 euros per month.

A trend of moving cycling content towards paid options that follows the trend that in recent years surrounds all sports broadcasts. First it was football, later sports like Formula 1 and MotoGP; and now it seems that the major platforms have set their sights on cycling.

Fortunately, for now, the rights to the major Tours and the main events on the calendar are mostly in the hands of public television channels such as RTVE, FranceTV, or RAI, as they are the ones who produce the signal because they are very expensive productions and difficult to make profitable for most production companies, while public channels can be profitable with institutional support and serving as a tourist showcase for the places where the races pass through.

In any case, the rights transfer contracts have a specific duration and it will be necessary to pay attention to how they will be renegotiated as they come to an end. For example, in recent years, the Eurosport channel has the privilege of broadcasting the entire stages of the Tour de France while RTVE only broadcasts the last 100 kilometers of the stages. Signs that may indicate that even the major events are not safe from becoming paid.