Five highlights from the season. First up is Milan-Sanremo, the fever dream of a Cipressa attack happened and the final half hour of the race felt like a trance.
Will Tadej Pogačar ever win Milan-Sanremo? He’s an obvious contender to win it but has done it five times now and not done better than third. Peter Sagan looked made for this race but never got it. Pogačar can win, he ought to win but it’s the subtlety and nuance that he might not that make it interesting.
It’s becoming a quest. If he had nonchalantly taken an edition already then he might prefer to skip it, talking of a boring race that is a 250km procession, of how it doesn’t offer him a challenge. But because it’s elusive and still just within his range he keeps returning. Many a rider does this, if you want to see Monaco-based pro out training the Poggio at the end of the morning and during lunchtime is as good a place as any.
This year’s race saw UAE come in with a plan to attack on the Cipressa and launch Pogačar away for the win. It was both the obvious thing to do and audacious. Expected as in this blog wrote a How to win Sanremo the week before suggesting just this move for UAE; brave because to pull it off is to abandon the settled consensus for the race. It’d been years since we’d even seen an attack on the Cipressa, decades since it had actually worked.
Pogačar launched and with the field strung out he had Filippo Ganna, Mathieu van der Poel and Romain Grégoire behind him and they tried to follow when nobody else could. Grégoire was soon dropped, then Ganna too but the big Italian used the balcony road over the top to get back.
On to the Poggio and Pogačar made several attacks. This distanced Ganna and set up a duel with the World Champion making more moves but each one was becoming less incisive and Van der Poel even made a counter move over the top.
Ganna got back in the streets of Sanremo and he packs a sprint to set up a frantic finish but it was Van der Poel that won again.
Why the highlight?
There hadn’t been an attack on the Cipressa for years and the last time one had worked was in 1996 so this alone makes it something worth celebrating. Watching it happen was entrancing, especially as we saw more moves on the Poggio. Plus it was more than a duel, Ganna playing an extra role as he chased with all he could.
There’s also the paradox of Pogačar not winning means we’re very likely to get more of the same again, he’ll start and with plans to attack from afar. So if it was a highlight of last season, next season’s edition is promising already.
If you’d been away from the sport and looked up the results to see Van der Poel and Pogačar share the Monuments you might think you did not miss much, all the races carved up between two riders. Sanremo showed that if the result was predictable, the path to victory can give a thrill.
Also Sanremo supplied action to the very end. In the Ronde, Roubaix, E3, Gent-Wevelgem and later in Lombardia we had a solo winner which left much to admire but meant viewers were able to know the winner from far out.
With hindsight
UAE got it wrong again. There’s no need to start the Cipressa in first place but they too far back and it cost energy to move up on the early slopes. In a race where every pedal stroke counts this was a penalty and, impossible to prove, had Pogačar gone into the climb better he might have had just that extra bit to go clear over the Cipressa. But would he want to with Van der Poel and Ganna chasing? Their presence helped keep the move away.
Alongside Van der Poel and Pogačar Ganna almost looked like an interloper but in the moment this all looked promising for him, second place in a race that did not really suit but it would be his best result in the spring.
Van der Poel and Pogačar seem to feed off each other, we saw this at the Tour de France too. To end this piece a fanciful suggestion: if UAE want to enable Pogačar to full the last few empty spots in his trophy cabinet then they could throw money at Van der Poel and hire him to help Pogačar in Sanremo and Roubaix. The Dutchman has a price and could be sprung out of his contract at Alpecin-Deceuninck and with Canyon too. Preposterous? Yes, of course but fun to mull for five minutes in December. So for now there are still some things that team budgets cannot buy.
What would MVdP’s price be and could anyone pay him enough to sacrifice potential, even likely, victories? It’s one thing to buy GC contenders as domestiques deluxe, but MVdP in the classics is another thing entirely.
You’d hope that being a multi-millionaire would be enough, and that he’d rather have more wins than the empty ego-hit of an even bigger number on a screen when you check your balance (or whatever millionaires do).
But many very wealthy people go for the latter.
My argument soon to be made moot by a sheik’s cheque, but… van der Poel has gone through a similar dilemma at a smaller scale before. He always opted for his small team (back then even comparatively smaller) in order to able to choose his objectives, go on with CX and so on.
OK, but vdP always rides with the terrible weight of that missing MTB crown, even if self-imposed. Whereas Pogi (likely) tilts at this race knowing well of what IR speaks, i.e. more nuance than a monumental effort needed. Thus IMO vdP’s dilemma is greater, it must permeate his every waking hour.
Is that a terrible weight that permeates his every waking hour?
Or something he’d quite like to have a go at again?
It’s not like many (other than MTB fanatics perhaps) will look back at his career and think, ‘But he never won the MTB Olympics’.
Allow me to put it another way. vdP has MSR, but not the XC mtb title he wants. Whereas Pogacar wants MSR & P-R but hasn’t any CX or XC titles. “Rounding out” the road races / monuments is not the same as rounding out almost all of cycling. Yes one can argue the 5 monument club is loftier, but the pressure is surely greater to be champion in different disciplines.
Pete, I suppose it depends on what one’s own biases are. I’d care very little about any MTB title, whereas winning all five monuments is a truly rare and historic achievement. (An MTB fan would feel the opposite, I guess.)
I don’t know enough about MTB, so this is a sincere question: MvdP has shown several times both on the road and in CX to be able to beat rivals who on the day had superior athletical strengths, and on very few occasions had a technical gap, even (course-relative); would that be possible in MTB or does the discipline prevent it? Or is simply MvdP too far back behind in terms of shape and skills?
Gabrielle,
I don’t follow MTB, but the odd time I’ve watched VdP in MTB XC, it seems he is just a /tad/ rusty on the technical skills needed. He’s brilliant, and usually above others in CX and road, but MTB XC the level seems to be higher and VdP is just ‘good’ in comparison to the best.
Also, XC seems to have more climbing. Just enough to be out of VdP’s comfort zone. VdP is great in the many short, steep, v hig burst-power climbs in CX, and even the slightly longer sprinty climbs /some/ CX courses have. However MTB XC the climbs are just a bit longer again, and long enough (minute+) to favour the high aerobic W/Kg guys, like Pidcock, over VdP.
is it without precedent? Is it not what the Italians did with De Vlaeminck so Moser could win Roubaix?!
(joke)
Would Pogacar want to win Milano–San Remo by buying out Van der Poel? He might feel that would make the win a bit hollow.
It seems to me that Del Toro should be able to do the same job.
Well they seem to be in the market for the other GC contenders so why not M Van der Poel.
Not even a close comparison. It should be buying out Vingo or so. And even that wouldn’t be the same as nobody has currently more chances in GCs than Pogi himself, as instead MvdP (theoretically, currently) still has got in a couple of Monuments.
Ganna and Pog made a mess of that sprint. They should have been right behind MVDP – Ganna was on the other side of the road (for what reason?), and Pog was way too far back.
He’d very probably have won anyway, but they gave it away, a la Sagan.
Feels like Pog wants to complete cycling. Does he need to pick Sanremo or Roubaix as going for both is like chasing two different things.
At least he’s interesting to watch in those races, unlike everything else where he dominates completely and inevitably.
Winning both the same year is difficult, as it’s indeed the norm with nearly any set of two Monuments (with obvious exceptions). In this case, it’s mostly calendar-preparation reasons.
Technically, they’ve become apt to similar profiles in the last 15 years or so, I’d say.
I don’t realise how rare the Sanremo – Roubaix double was. Only 4 riders have achieved the feat from what I see: Hauwaert (1908), Kelly (1986), Degenkolb (2015), and of course Mathieu (2023).
Yep, but as I said above you’ll also easily notice that combining the same season Sanremo with Ronde or Liège is historically even more elusive, not to speak of combining PR with anything else but Ronde.
Actually, out of 10 combinations Sanremo-PR is the *3rd most common* in numerical terms on par with LBL-Lombardia (happened once less, but one more rider achieving it): both behind, first of all, the cobbled couple, for obvious technical reasons and the only one really standing out; plus, Sanremo-Lombardia, which is however a peculiar case as it was relatively common 1921-1951 (because of an interesting series of socio-historical reasons), yet from then on it was achieved only twice in 1971 and 1972 by the one and still only Eddy Merckx.
In the post Merckx era, Sanremo-Roubaix is 2nd absolute most common, slightly better than LBL-Lombardia again (in this case, same number of occurrences, but less athletes making it for the latter, just Argentin and Pogi).
So you’d say it’s rare, yes, but “common in comparative terms” LOL
It’s telling all the same (technical affinities surface), but it’s a feeble metrics because of the extremely low quantity of occurrences – the random factor is too high a wall.
It’s also quite telling that those always difficult doubles (the easiest, i.e., the cobbled one isn’t precisely “easy”) have been achieved in recent years multiple times by MvdP (3 total times on 2 combo, you forgot 2025 above) and Pogi (6 total times on 3 combos). It’s the sort of De Vlaeminck-Van Looy level for MvdP, even above for Pogi (still below Eddy of course). It’s testament of a shocking high level in Classics by this two athletes, even more so as – unlike stage racing – you can’t even really say that we’re in a period of modest competition.
Thank you very much, gabriele, that is incredibly interesting. I had never thought to look into these combos in detail.
The fact that we’re talking about these two in relation to ‘De Vlaeminck, Van Looy & of course Eddy’ really does, even now, fill me with a childlike excitement.
If Van der Poel can win both then Pogačar has a shot at both together. The timing though is an issue, over a month apart but this might also depend if there are other goals, eg does he have to go for the UAE Tour as well?
Pog needs to complete cyclo-cross and gravel to complete cycling. Van der Poel is – at this point – much closer to “completed cycling” than Pog.
There’s also Pidcock, who /has/ ‘completed’ MTB and CX. Pidcock probably has a better chance of nabbing the road WC jersey than VdP has of getting the MTB crown. So perhaps Pidcock can complete the “road, cross, mtb” WC trifecta.
Still some road to go before any of ’em getting close to road, CX, MTB, gravel Worlds plus why not TDF like PFP (and Roubaix on top of that as the logical sum of asphalt, dust, stones, potholes, tactics and France) ^___^
A shame Vos’ experiences in MTB were limited, because she also could duly add track to the mix, which is pretty fine.
Anyway, it looks manifest enough to be possibly implied that Pogi is interested in completing just road cycling.
And on the WCs ‘quadfecta’ – again, Pidcock is the most likely to get there. Just cause he already has MTB, which VdP is unlikely to achieve and Pog isn’t even going to try for. Pidcock has a decent chance of getting the gravel WC too – he’s certainly going for it, and I imagine will keep going for it.
We’ll see what Pidcock can do on monuments. On his day he can nab any of them – he’s shown the talent he has with a number of classics wins already – but he can also be way off a lot of the time too. Mercurial talent. 😉
He seems to be focusing on stage races at the moment. Which may dampen his training and motivation for the monuments.
This is track cycling erasure. Which is fair enough.
Randomly, Simon Yates has one of the better road/track crossover palmares, with a track world title and 2 GT wins.
Do you think UAE is strong enough to put some pressure from il Turchino ? Would it be useful or just a waste of energy ? Because I start to wonder how Pogacar could win this thing. If he goes alone from the Cipressa, can he hold alone against a small bunch ? I guess it depends on how much gregarii there is left.
That was really one of the most exciting races of the year.
There are 100 km between the Turchino and the three Capi. Between the Capi and the Cipressa there are 14 km of flat road (about the distance between the Cipressa and the Poggio).
The last of the three Capi, the Capo Berta is a more plausible place to try to split the peloton. If the group is down to 60 riders here, then positioning becomes much easier entering the turn off the main road for the Cipressa. And there would be fewer domestiques to help with the chase. It would be brave to try from the Capi though.
The Turchino could still be used but not for an attack, instead a tough pace to sap everyone would suit UAE’s style. I think an attack is too much, the Turchino just isn’t hard enough to go clear (a helpful guide is that a rail line runs alongside, and a normal one too, not some mountain one). Even the Cipressa is not so steep, it’s just there are some steeper parts to exploit especially with 280km in the legs and only just.
The steepest climb is actually the Capo Berta, even if it is quite a long way from the finish. But definitely this is a place where the peloton could be thinned.
This was by far and away the highlight of the season. A race I’ll never forget and an all timer without a doubt.
I’d expect I would’ve said Yates winning the Giro but that felt strangely anti climatic as the dispute between Toro/Carapaz took precedent over Simon’s feat.
So I think Amstel is second? Great race. Seems like any time Pog makes the race but then gets beaten is a race of the season contender.
In that vein it’s probably Paris at the Tour next, great day and even Roubaix after that? Although the crash felt like it robbed us of something more special.
I enjoyed the season but only those five days that stand out as true barnstormers?
Stage one at the Dauphine was good, some of the Pedersen wins at the Giro were nice as he seems like such a great guy, Seixas third at Euros was amazing, Ben Healy taking yellow and a stage at the Tour, Del Toro’s numerous wins were impressive but none stand out as memorable strangely? Bernal at Vuelta was nice, Ayuso’s weird come back wins were odd, Jay Vine’s wins always impressive. All Remco’s TTs were exceptional but his Brabantse Pijl is the one I remember?
Reinforcing your general concept, may I say that the finale of the ITT male pro Worlds were also an incredible moment re: Remco?
I would add WVAs win in Siena, stage 9 of the Giro.
Or conversely, Powless’ win in Dwars door, although that was a bit farcical…
Or Roglič’s Catalunya, specifically the last Barcelona stage.
I find it heartbreaking how many of these stand out days are outside the main ‘Monuments+TDF’ mainstays that most mid-level cycling fans watch so the sports brilliant moments often pass them by. Will always be he way and all sports have this, would just be nice that others could see the sport at its best and share in the love.
Luckily that new final stage of the Tour is going to give fireworks for fair weather fans for years to come. I’ll happily say goodbye to the ‘sprinters world champs elysees’ for good.
@oldDAVE this “Monuments + TDF” selection of you look just a bit cut out on the anglo-newbie-fan of the sport profile, or just to feel comfortable with your argument line, and doesn’t correspond too, well, more or less anything at all… apart people with a recent interest, but hit hard by the TNT etc. TV moves.
I mean, in terms of spectators the Monuments barring Roubaix (which still sits behind) don’t come close to the Giro, and however the Worlds have more global audience.
The traditional short stage races have a very diverse and variable audience across countries and time, but the well-known top seven are established enough to often enjoy decent viewing figures although not in every country, but the same is now true for the Ronde as it’s not anymore on public broadcast in Italy and Spain, hence losing well over 1M total spectators. Admittedly, same is true for Amstel.
The Euros might have had more spectators than their actual sporting relevance would suggest, thanks to public broadcasting.
However, among the above listed races, I’d agree that few maybe enjoyed Brabantse Pijl or Waregem (Dwars door etc.), which is just logical, as in any sport you have minor events eventually offering top editions, yet the Giro and Vuelta stages, or the Worlds albeit ITT, might have got more spectators than the Ronde or Lombardia, perhaps even Liège, or anyway a similar number, not to speak of general coverage.
So, depending on how you adjust the selection of “relevant” races, you might discover that more of those “moments” have been shared by more fans than you’d expect.
I’d even go as far as to say that the issue is not any too rigidly established race hierarchy within the sport (apart from the TDF Roi Soleil role), but rather it’s about an ahem “excess of diversity” (if such thing can exist) across its different markets, especially in terms of eyeball and perception. Of course I’m worried by a current process of evening down the situation at its lowest, namely Ronde, Amstel or even Giro and Vuelta losing more and more of their viewership because of exclusivity agreements with big international private broadcasters, which, to make things worse, are facing a phase of deep instability themselves.
Or the Küssnacht^4 stage at TDS on 15th June.
I mean …
Küssnacht-Küssnacht last stage of women TDS in the morning
X
Küssnacht-Küssnacht first stage of men TDS in the afternoon.
Both very different examples of great great racing with so many subplots each both for GC and on the day.
Add to the Pogi defeats list also GP Québec, I liked it, be it only because I love how Alaphilippe is going down all guns blazing and he so deeply deserved it after several impressive but useless efforts (Amstel itself, TDS, Carcassonne, ToB). I was so afraid his Giro stage win was going to be a definitive swan song as it was for Sagan but… not as much. Alaph kept his bar higher after that, under so many respects.
Instead, I’ll break a lance for one specific Pogi victory, and in the ahem ugliest of Classics, the Flèche. Perhaps it was precisely because there wasn’t much to spoil, but I liked him keeping focussed on racing when many suggested he’d better stay home to recover after the Amstel disappointment. I liked the sensation of genuin relief mixed with a surprising sense of tiredness (maybe just dirt and bad weather) on his face when he finally got it after that impressive seated acceleration (which many obviously disliked because of excessive superiority but which made perfect sense on wet asphalt). However, I’ll also admit that this is one for the fans, not exactly cycling history or at the same level of quality as the rest.
A race day not mentioned so far was the Dauphine stage 6 on the Combloux. Pogacar just blew up the peloton and rode away from Vingegaard by minutes on a fairly short climb. It was genuinely shocking. Before, many people had Vingegaard the favourite for the Tour; after that, the Tour de France was no longer a meaningful contest. And it was this that motivated Visma’s tactics in the Tour since they knew that they could not defeat Pogacar in a normal mano-a-mano climbing battle.
That would be a candidate for worst race day of 2025. It was a depressing preview of the non-competitive Tour we would sonn experience. Unless you’re a big Pog fan, of course.
Yes, it made the Tour a bit anti-climactic, and non-competitive. But it was a day of racing that we didn’t expect when the day started: most had Vingegaard as the better climber and wondered whether he would coast to winning the Dauphine after the time-trial. It certainly was not the pre-ordained procession to the finish we got at Liege or Lombardia, when we knew who would win and where the attack was going to happen. Those two races were boring. Combloux was genuinely shocking (for me, anyway).
On the “preposterous” line of thinking… what if Pogi tries to turn it into an U23 chaos race attacking from some non-sequitur place? Would they follow, or, according to etymology (maybe the simple usual desperation), wouldn’t they?
I mean, maybe not getting away alone but with some athletes whi might work even for a lesser placing.
That is some photo, the 2nd one of Pog attacking with Van der Poel on his wheel and Ganna in the distance – is that where Ganna is getting back on the balcony road, or where they distanced him on the Poggio? Pog is actually grimacing there – a rare sight.
“a boring race that is a 250km procession”
Well, if Pog keeps on with this “lose MSR, so attack even earlier in the next MSR” we may see an edition of the MSR with 100+ km of attacking racing. 😉
And I wanted to write: The number of (elite) world championship wins there are in that single photo of 3 riders!
Ganna: 2.Van der Poel: 9 Pogacar: 2 – Total: 13!
Love these comments – but I’m praying that Pog doesn’t make Sagan’s mistake at Milan San Remo…
The year Sagan lost to Kwaito his attack was completely perfect, he went just after the greenhouses on the Poggio and should’ve won. I expected him to repeat that exact plan for the coming years because one time it would’ve work, but he never did it again? It’s crazy he ended his career without a MSR win…
Pog’s tactics now are spot on also, if the wind is favourable he has to attack at the exact same place every year that he can because there’s no way MVDP will be at the level he was last year for the next five years now he’s 30 and his most likely competition is in his own team with Del Toro unless Remco gives it a go. Again if Pog repeats the Cipressa move one time it will come off, if he’s remains at his current level.
If van der Poel’s world championships number counts his cyclocross & gravel titles then shouldn’t Ganna’s count his track ones? That would give him 9 too, or possibly 8 if the Team Pursuit isn’t counted.
Yes, I had meant to include Ganna’s track WCs, but missed them. Thanks! I’d stick to individual though.
So that’s 8 for Ganna, and 19 in total for the photo!
What a photo in terms of modern talent.
It’s on the Poggio, just after the 2nd hairpin in absolute terms, or if you prefer right in-between the tight set of two hairpins before Madonna della Guardia (1,5 km from the beginning of the climb). If you want to spot the exact place look for those *squared* mirrors people use to come out from their garages, you can spot one in the photo if you follow the lower profile of the roof, on our left if we look at the black&white “tight bend” roadsign.
I also love the Equipe front page photo, you can nearly hear MvdP growling or his teeth grinding while Pogi looks under sincere distress.
A genuinely great race. From the Cipressa to the finish was as good as it gets. The cycling equivalent of Brazil’s 4th goal in the 1970 world cup final, or Borg v McEnroe. Pogacar’s constant jack in the box attacks after 270km of racing, and MvdP’s seeming un-dropability were both remarkable. Ganna’s comebacks also. There is something about Milan-Sanremo that seems to bring out the best in the best riders, certainly in recent years. It used to be seen as dull, requiring conservatism and energy conservation. But now as every other race seems to guarantee a solo winner, Milan-Sanremo is the only one that offers a race in the traditional sense. Others have touched on it, but I genuinely think Pogacar needs to attack from further out than the Cipressa. Give it a go from the first Capo and see what MvdP can do about that!
Agree. A race rather than a procession with two or three other important factors: Ganna and his yo-yo gave a genuine third actor in the drama [so, in that sense, better than Roubaix] plus the multiplicity of options, tactics, attacks and defences by all three riders both in theory and practice from the Cipressa to the finish raised it over, say, Amstel.
That the three contestants were all of the absolute highest quality from three separate, if overlapping, disciplines of road cycling, was “chef’s kiss” material, exemplifying the often claimed if not always vindicated idea that MSR is the Monument that can be won by the broadest range of riders.
Justifiably first on this year’s list of highlight and Raceday of the Year for me.
The cat-and-mouse between Pog and MVDP made it almost inevitable that Ganna would get a chance to get back in the race as long as he stayed relatively close, which added such a cool extra dimension to the finale of the race. Once it was clear that Pog couldn’t drop MVDP, it became much more likely that MVDP would end up winning, but it was far from a foregone conclusion. This made it almost unique in big non-sprint races in 2025.
I’ll do an oldDave to say I love this subthread with the above & below comments.
I’ll follow up on a separate thread above just adding here that… not just “three separate disciplines of road cycling” were involved, as Ganna is also a master of *track cycling* currently double holder of Hour and Pursuit records on top of his twenty some Olympic, World or European medals 11 of which being golden ones (besides having been ITT king on the road of course) and MvdP is not only one of the top one-day racer but also, well, probably the best *CX* athlete ever seen in history. A daredevil descent by *MTB* strong man Pidcock would have been a nice addendum to the mix, why not 2026 🙂
Ha this made me smile.
It’s nice when we all come together in positivity!
Will Pogi try the Cipressa again? Or will he go all-out on the Poggio? Tune in in March to find out!
Off topic but current news- so Netflix yesterday paid billions to buy Warner Bros. Another nail in the coffin of the cinema experience perhaps, but of interest on these hallowed pages because this means Netflix owns Discovery including the despicable TNT who in turn own Eurosport. For U.K. cycling viewers does this mean TdF on Netflix? Currently pro races are packaged with football etc for an eye watering £31.99 per month. I have refused to pay this as price gouging. I do have Netflix at £4.99 a month- could TNT coverage become just a part of Netflix at this price or will Netflix continue to keep it as a separate sports streamer?
Our host often poses the question “how to win” but more pressing seems to be the question “how to watch”!
Not to get even further off-topic, but I found that news fairly depressing. It seems like consumers’ interests are getting further and further from the forefront of the minds of the people who decide how content is provided. For those of us whose governments don’t care about public access to content such as cycling races, this means that we can only hope that we can find a way to see events like MSR. Unless, of course, you’re just willing to spend inordinate sums because it’s that important to you. Seems like we’re being forced to make such decisions more and more.
I was hinting at the possibility above, before definitive news break out.
I’m not optimist. It’s a big financial operations for which cycling tv rights is an odd detail in a small box within another little box within the thing which was actually bought, like you buy a house and there’s a lawnmower in the separate garage but you don’t want a lawn ’cause you’re more into a zen garden thing or maybe making a basketball field where the lawn was, besides selling the garage to the neighbours.
It’s all quite far from Netflix’ conceptual model and I see them trading it away, or squeezing it out to death before… throwing it away all the same.
Of course who knows maybe they want diversification and expanding into alternative business models (see their sport series productions including TDF), but it doesn’t bode well because people on the highest levels have probably no idea of this subworld and the easiest thing is messing it up.
Sadly, the lawnmower in the garage that you happened to buy with the house is a really good analogy. And given that Netflix’s model doesn’t currently involve live broadcasts, sports do seem to be part of the garage they might sell to the neighbours.
It’s confusing because Discovery/Warner Bros is splitting and separating TV channels so British viewers now used to TNT will see this as a separate company but still likely to host Eurosport. Meanwhile HBO Max is being rolled out across Europe and this is going to be the host for Eurosport. So it’s possible to have two separate companies both showing/funding Eurosport but that may not last long. But it’s not a done deal either, regulators can object and one of the other bidders, Paramount, is run the son of a multi-billionaire and large political donor which can mean something.
Eurosport is still a valuable and viable business to the right owners, but where it ends up remains to be seen. Sadly the trend is to make sports rights more expensive and exclusive.
But meanwhile cycling remains free-to-air in many European countries so a lot of the core audiences can still watch “their” Ronde, Tour, Giro… it’s just sharing it beyond national borders looks more complicated. Technology ought to solve this – take the video, put English commentary on top – but it’s creating walled gardens instead.
Walled gardens exactly. What I hate about all this – and Gabriele’s garden mower says it all, road racing is so feeble as an asset to these huge companies that its fate will be so random. TNT only cared about gaining subscribers, that’s the whole game now in this vast entertainment battle. A battle to gain the most subscribers. Like heaven and hell fighting over our souls. And English language cycling fans seem a tiny minority not worth anyone’s time really. I’m not sure Netflix will be that bothered, and we’re also low priority to sort out soon. They’ve spent £57 billion on Warners, raking some of that dosh back must be their priority. Not actually sure how, more, new subscribers? Is there that many out there? Or is it just grabbing a piece of pie stopping rivals getting it. Probably that. The biggest dick game. Maybe just maybe they’ll just dump Eurosport onto Netflix for now not thinking about it. Or maybe they flog it onwards. They dumped the TdF Netflix show, can’t have much faith in cycling.
Also on the Netflix/TNT story and apologies again for hijacking thread, it sounds very complicated; TNT US is not part of the Netflix deal but will stay with a separate rump of Discovery+ but in U.K. TNT goes to Netflix. Also it seems TNT has been haemorrhaging money and recently lost Champions league rights to Paramount+ and all international rugby rights to ITV. If Netflix thinks TNT is a busted flush maybe they’ll sell it off.
Speaking of Paramount, here they come with a new takeover bid supported by Mr. Trump, Oracle and the Saudis ^____^
Tour de Trump all over again?
(Had I written already “deep instability”?)
If Eurosport is a metaphore for “Europe”, this doesn’t look like brilliant perspectives for the Ol’ Continent.
Meanwhile Campagnolo is on the brink of sinking while SRAM which on road bikes is equally hated by mechanics and customers (the ones I know 😛 ) goes on adquiring brands and companies…
Strange times indeed! Latest wrinkle is that although Paramount are now planning a hostile bid for Warners, their sugar daddy Trump is pissed at them for an interview yesterday on 60 minutes – owned by Paramount. So he might wave through the Netflix deal in a hissy fit. Ha, cycling’s broadcasting fate (in UK) determined by a hissy fit.