Cyclist
How to watch cycling post-GCN+
One of the things we sadly said goodbye to in 2023 was GCN+, the much-loved streaming service that hosted extensive live coverage of the racing calendar for a worldwide audience as well as a host of documentaries. With the GCN+ app gone too, subscribers will have to look elsewhere to watch cycling this year, and unfortunately for those outside the UK and Europe, it’s either more complicated, more expensive, or both. Here are all the details you’ll need to get your fix across 2024
United Kingdom and Ireland
UK-based cycling fans can switch over to Discovery+ (owned by Warner Brothers) for the same coverage as GCN+ had, with the bonus of covering a plethora of other sports if that’s your bag. Subscriptions are £6.99/month for the ‘Standard’ package of live cycling including all Grand Tours, which is more than GCN+ cost but will also include the Paris Olympic Games (plus tennis, snooker, and motorsports among others, if you care.) Packages go up to £29.99/month for more sports including Premier and Champions’ League football, rugby, MotoGP and UFC.
If cycling is the only sport you’re interested in then unfortunately it will be more expensive than previously to watch. The one exception is the Tour de France and its highlights, which will be on ITV4 for free as normal and ITVX on catch-up, fronted by Gary Imlach, Ned Boulting, David Millar and Pete Kennaugh. If you’re already subscribed to Sky, most packages also include Eurosport and Discovery+ at no extra cost, so that’s also worth checking out.
North America
GCN, Discovery+ and Eurosport parent company Warner Brothers have announced that Max will be the home of their live coverage for US viewers from February 2024.
Max subscribers will need to buy the B/R Sports add-on to view this, which should cover 53 women’s races, the Giro d’Italia, cobbled Classics, UCI Mountain Bike World Series and UCI Track Champions League. It’s essentially taking over GCN+’s coverage, including The Breakaway pre- and post-race show that used to be hosted on the platform. They will also cover cyclocross, track, and BMX events.
A subscription to Max will set you back $9.99/month or $99.99/year with ads, $15.99/month or $149.99/year for ad-free and $19.99/month or $199.99/year for ‘Ultimate Ad-Free’, which lets you stream on four devices at once. The B/R Sports add-on will cost $9.99/month more on top of one of these packages but is included with an existing plan through 29th February 2024.
The same commentary team will feature, including former pros Alberto Contador, Philippe Gilbert, Robbie McEwen and Jens Voigt, it’ll just cost you significantly more.
More usefully for Canadian viewers (and those with deep pockets), FloBikes will continue streaming races in North America. It also has rights for UCI World Cup and X20 Trofee cyclocross races. A subscription will set you back US$149.99/CAN$150 for the year or US$29.99/CAN$29.99 on a monthly basis.
NBC and its streaming service PeacockTV will broadcast the Tour de France in the US, while FloBikes has the rights for Canada.
Europe
Individual broadcasters will continue to stream racing live, including FranceTV in France, Sporza in Belgium, RTVE in Spain, TV2 in Denmark and RAI Sport in Italy. Most race websites provide details on which individual broadcasters will stream the races live in different countries, but Eurosport will also show racing across most of Europe. In Poland, Eurosport Extra will be the go-to site for live coverage of pro racing.
Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden – all countries where GCN+ was available – can all swap to Discovery+ with similar subscription plans to those in the UK. Like for UK viewers that will cover a variety of races and all three Grand Tours.
Australia/New Zealand
Unfortunately for Australian viewers, the GCN+ shaped streaming gap in cycling coverage doesn’t look like it will be entirely filled anytime soon.
SBS will cover the Grand Tours, Paris-Nice, the Tour of Oman, Volta a Catalunya, Spring Classics and the World Champs among others, but not near the variety GCN+ offered. Coverage on SBS On Demand is free to watch. The 7 Network is covering the Tour Down Under.
SkySport will provide some coverage in New Zealand but didn’t have rights for all the races in 2023.
However, as of right now no broadcasters have picked up the rights to cyclocross events from GCN+.
South America, Asia and Africa
ESPN will broadcast the Tour de France and other big races for Latin America and the Caribbean.
US provider Max has announced it should also become available in the region in 2024, but there are no details as yet of when that’ll be or how much it will cost.
Colombian viewers can also watch cycling on CaracoI TV.
Elsewhere, coverage is pretty thin on the ground. Coverage can be found on CCTV and ZhiboTV in China, Eurosport in Southeast Asia, J Sports 4 and J Sports on Demand in Japan, and BeIN Sports in the Middle East and North Africa, and SuperSport in Africa. For other races, a VPN may be your best.
VPNs
In a nutshell, VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) protect your network connection by making it private. A VPN works by encrypting your device’s data to reroute your internet traffic through a server elsewhere, which hides your device’s actual location from your ISP. They’re ideal for making your device more secure as your ISP can’t see which websites you visit or any data you send or receive.
They also have the handy benefit of hiding your location, allowing you to access content that is normally geoblocked, useful for travelling abroad or accessing coverage when there are no or limited rights holders in your country.
As such, a cycling fan in Russia, Thailand or Namibia could – through the magic of VPN – appear to be in the UK, US, or France, and be able to access races broadcast there through any of the providers mentioned above.
One such VPN provider is ExpressVPN, which is very well reviewed, helps users to find way to watch cycling without having to pay for broadcasters services, and costs £5.36 per month, with three months free.
- Check out ExpressVPN.com
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