ESPN secure rights to air Tour de France until 2027
July 4, 2022
ESPN and Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.) announce a rights agreement through 2027 to broadcast the Tour the France, the new Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and other marquee men’s and women’s international cycling competitions. The agreement also includes events such as La Vuelta, Critérium du Dauphiné, Paris-Nice and Paris-Roubaix from 2023 to 2027. In this way, ESPN continues to be the home of cycling, with the world’s top cycling races and an unparalleled content portfolio.
The agreement includes the rights to air the Tour de France via all means and media for ESPN platforms – TV, internet/digital/mobile, OTT and VOD. This will mean live exclusive pay TV/digital rights, and ESPN will provide linear broadcast for last two hours of stages and full coverage of each race stage on streaming platforms Star+ in Latin America and ESPN Play in the Caribbean – starting in 2023.
Among the highlights of the new agreement, it is worth mentioning the expansion of ESPN’s rights for women’s cycling events with the addition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift, La Flèche Wallonne Femmes, Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes and the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta.
“It’s a pleasure to be able to continue offering the world’s most important cycling competitions headlined by the Tour de France, for our cycling fans across Latin America and the Caribbean. Also, we’re enormously proud to announce that the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and many other significant women’s events will be part of our regular cycling programming as of 2023,” said Michael Walters, Vice President of Programming for ESPN.
“We are delighted to renew and strengthen our agreement in Latin America with ESPN for the broadcast of the Tour de France and many other events until 2027. Those events have seen a lot of success from Latin American participants in the recent years and plenty are yet to come on ESPN channels and platforms. The spotlight will also be put on women’s cycling as soon as July 24, 2022 with the start of the first Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift that will be part of ESPN’s commitment to the cycling sport in Central and South America as well as the Caribbean”, said Julien Goupil, Media and Partnership Director, Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.).