For over 30 years, Eurosport was always there, lurking down the listings, ready to throw a niche sport at us at a moment's notice. Ski biathlon? Sure. Rallying? We have plenty. Snooker at an event you've never heard of? Come on in. More than anything else though, to me, and to so many others, it was the home of cycling.
Sure, there was ITV when the Tour de France was on, but it was on Eurosport that I discovered the real meat of the cycling season, from the Classics to the Giro d'Italia, all there, live. I might have grown weary of some commentators, but it was the perfect distraction, all the time.
My parents didn't have a sports TV package - it is still a mystery how I got so into sport in the first place - and therefore Eurosport was the only option, the only channel to help me get hooked on live sport 24/7. For some reason, it was cycling that got me. I love cricket, but I've never watched it on TV, because I never had Sky Sports, same with football. Cycling was always there.
I'm sure I don't need to lecture you on the beauty of watching cycling on television, but it turned an impressionable young Adam into someone quickly obsessed with the sport. A bike race shows a region, sometimes a whole country, in a way that no other sport - barely any other thing - can. I quickly came to know the geography and topography of Flanders, of Italy, of most of France. I was addicted to pro cycling, and this was thanks to one channel.
When I left home, Eurosport came with me, in the shape of an affordable subscription which meant I could watch cycling, non-stop, endlessly. I remember watching Peter Sagan win his first World Championships while in my third year of university while my flatmates did more typical uni things, and then, when I started work, having whole Grand Tours secretly hidden on a second screen while sitting in an office - before I was a cycling journalist and viewing races became legitimate 'work', obviously.
In fact, I was into watching cycling well before I became a proper cyclist. It was watching Tom Dumoulin at the 2017 Giro, or an endless series of Quick Step riders winning in the Classics, that made me think that cycling was cool. I'm not alone in that, and there will be others who found careers in cycling (perhaps even cycling careers) this way.
Eurosport was always there, and reliable. When live cycling morphed into GCN+, that was even better, with more on a dedicated app providing round the clock coverage. But, I always had a soft spot for the original, where Paris-Roubaix would end and you'd suddenly be shown some tennis that you didn't care about. It was mad, but great.
Well, all that comes to an end today. As of tomorrow, live cycling in the UK and Ireland will be shown on TNT Sports, and that affordable Eurosport/GCN+/Discovery+ subscription is a thing of the past. You might be able to get it as part of a package, or on a deal, but the regular rate is £30.99 a month, a 343% increase on a Discovery+ subscription, or even more if you were someone who just relied on Eurosport as part of a regular TV package. It is the end of the era, and one that could be crushing for cycling in the UK.
"Our commitment to cycling has no boundaries", Scott Young, the group SVP for content, production and business operations at WBD Sports Europe, said in a press release this week, launching TNT Sports' cycling coverage.
As much as the channel will undoubtedly provide cycling content with no boundaries, whacking a £30.99 a month subscription on live cycling in the UK feels like a barrier to me.
A TV guide for TNT Sports 2 on Saturday has Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on there, so the revolution has begun. Eurosport was the home of cycling, it really was, and TNT Sports is not that, yet. It's the home of Champions League football and Premiership rugby, not cycling.
I'll be mourning Eurosport, and it will take me a while to get used to this future I didn't ask for. So that's it, after 36 years. So long, and good luck?
