Tour de France race radio TV broadcast in peril

Despite its popularity among TV viewers, the future television broadcast of race radios at the Tour de France has been thrown into doubt, with six teams telling Cycling Weekly that under current conditions they would not agree to the program next season, while Tour organisers, ASO, have admitted that they’re struggling to make the project financially sustainable.

The scheme, inspired by Formula One’s broadcasting of race radios, was first piloted at the 2022 Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift, and introduced in the men’s race a year later with 17 of the 22 competing teams signing-up. A team of three people listen into each transmitted audio and decide which comments should be broadcasted – usually with a delay of between 15 and 30 minutes, depending on the nature of the material.

Despite a few teething issues, it was considered a huge success, especially with Tadej Pogačar’s infamous line of “I’m gone, I’m dead” during stage 17 going on to become the defining moment of the 2023 race. According to ASO, 15 teams recommitted for this year’s race.

However, despite widespread approval among all stakeholders of the idea of taking the audience closer to the action, teams remain deeply unhappy about the financial remuneration they are given. In return for handing over access to their internal team communications, each team is given just €5,000 for the 21 stages. “If ASO really valued it, then they would pay us more,” one team said. “As it is, we won’t be signing up for next year.”

International broadcasters can pay a reported €60,000 to add the team audio to their broadcast feed, but it is not known how many are paying for the additional service. One official from a team who has been signed up for the past two years said, “ASO are making extra money from it, but there’s no value in it for us.”

Jasper Saeijs, marketing manager at Visma-Lease a Bike said: “It was a two year deal initially, and in the future we’ll look at how we can continue with this project… depending on the discussions we’ll have.” Asked if the team would recommit going forward if current conditions remained unchanged, Saeijs said: “I don’t know. We will finish it [this year], reevaluate it, and then say if we continue or not. It depends not only on money, but how it went in the last two years, everything combined together.”

Emily Brammeier, head of communications for dsm-firmenich PostNL, said: “For sure this content has huge value, and more than what teams are getting [paid] now. Would we sign up to it again? If the majority of the teams did and the conditions of the deal were right, yes, we would.”

Julien Goupil, ASO’s commercial director, confirmed the organiser’s intentions to continue with the venture, but admitted that they must bring a sponsor on board to safeguard its future use. “We need to find a business model around it… and at the date of today we have never managed to find a sponsor for such content. We’re struggling and we’re hoping to find one.”

He added: “The difficulty is finding a sponsor and a business model, because when you pay everything, you need to cover your costs. But we’ve never covered the cost over the past three years so it’s an investment.” 

Goupil stated that teams will never be coerced into agreeing to the project, but admitted that if “teams say they don’t want to do it, then we will not do it anymore. But for us the idea is to continue.”

Both Visma and UAE voiced disapproval with certain audios that were transmitted during the 2023 edition, claiming that team tactics were given away. CW also heard from several teams that sports directors “feel extra stress because they have to put a filter on important tactical info.” However, every team spoken to for this article reported being much happier with the system and how it’s functioning in 2024. 

Brammeier added: “With any project there are always teething problems, but if we want to grow the sport, we need to find new ways to make the sport more engaging for the younger generation of fans. Behind the scenes footage works in other sports and it has a value for us which we have seen especially in social media clips.”