No free-to-air Tour de France coverage in the UK until at least 2033 as TNT Sports and European Broadcasting Union quickly extend rights package with ASO
The extended deal includes all of ASO’s races
TNT Sports and Eurosport will continue showing the Tour de France for at least the next six years after extending their broadcast deal with the European Broadcast Union (EBU) through 2032.
The EBU itself announced an extension with Tour de France organisers ASO to distribute rights to the Tour, Vuelta, and other races, with a largely unchanged cast of broadcasters now in place for an extra two years compared to the previous deal cycle.
The extended broadcast deal with the EBU will cover all ASO and Unipublic’s races, comprising 93 race days over 18 events, and will apply to viewers in the UK and Ireland for TNT Sports, and Eurosport in Europe, though there will be some specific national exemptions for the latter.
The announcement comes only two years after TNT Sports revealed they had negotiated rights to exclusively show the Tour de France 2030 and at least provides fans with relative clarity over their future viewing decisions. However, it does mean that the absence of the Tour de France from free-to-air UK television – one of the most controversial developments of the previous rights deal – will remain in place for even longer.
Rights to show pro cycling races have been a hot potato in recent years. Just under three years ago Warner Brothers Discovery closed viewing platform GCN+, switching the service to TNT Sports and hiking the price exponentially. Soon after, TNT Sports and its new streaming home of HBO Max became the exclusive Tour de France broadcaster in the UK, where live free-to-air coverage ended in 2025 when ITV withdrew.
That free-to-air coverage was replaced this year when UK TV channel 5 began showing highlights packages of the Grand Tours, and this will remain unchanged, until 2028 for the Tour and Vuelta, with the deal to show the Giro d’Italia currently set to end a year later. 5 will also have live coverage of the 2027 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes Grand Départs, which will take place in the UK.
As well as the men’s and women’s Tour de France and Vuelta a España, other races included are as big as Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège and as diverse as the ADAC Cyclassics and Tro Bro Leon, all of which will form part of TNT Sports' and Eurosport’s wider coverage of the sport.
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While it will be shown on TNT Sports in the UK and on Eurosport in some territories, the Lidl Deutschland Tour is not included in the EBU deal, with the Tour of Oman, Arctic Race of Norway and Asian criteriums also excluded. "We have separate agreements around those races with ASO," a TNT spokesperson told Cyclingnews.
“It is a privilege to act as the custodian of the biggest events in cycling including the Tour de France and La Vuelta and we welcome the opportunity to continue working in partnership with the EBU and ASO to showcase the very best of our sport," added Trojan Paillot, Eurosport and TNT’s Senior Vice President for Sports Rights Acquisitions and Syndication.
"Over four decades, we have built a proven record of bringing fans quality cycling coverage and stories and have relentlessly pursued new ways to grow the sport.
"Our commitment to innovation, passion for the sport, and unmatched scale makes us the perfect partner to continue advancing cycling coverage for many years to come.” innovation, passion for the sport, and unmatched scale makes us the perfect partner to continue advancing cycling coverage for many years to come.”
Races included in the EBU deal
- ADAC Cyclassics Hamburg
- Clásica San Sebastián
- Eschborn-Frankfurt
- Flèche Wallonne
- Flèche Wallonne Femmes
- La Vuelta Ciclista a España
- La Vuelta Femenina
- Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes
- Paris-Nice
- Paris-Roubaix Hauts-de-France
- Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift
- Paris-Tours
- Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (formerly the Critérium du Dauphiné)
- Tour de France
- Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift
- Tro Bro Leon
- Volta a Catalunya
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A recent addition to the Cyclingnews staff, Owen Rogers is an experienced journalist, working as a freelancer covering the sport for various magazines and websites for more than 10 years.
Initially concentrating mainly on the women's sport, he has covered hundreds of race days on the ground and interviewed some of the sport's biggest names.
Living near Cambridge in the UK, when he's not working you'll find him either riding his bike or playing drums.
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