The European Broadcasting Union has retained its rights to the Tour de France and Vuelta a España ‘Grand Tour’ cycling races out to 2025.
The Tour de France deal, which was agreed with rights-holder the Amaury Sport Organisation, is an extension of the current agreement that runs from 2020 to 2023.
Under the extension, the EBU will also hold rights from this year to the following women’s races for the first time: La Course by Le Tour, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Flèche Wallonne.
These events are in addition to the other races already included in the Tour de France inventory, which are: Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Tours, the Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Critérium du Dauphiné and Eschborn-Frankfurt.
The EBU’s deal for the Vuelta is a new deal, running from 2021 to 2025. It was agreed with rights-holder the Unipublic agency, which is a subsidiary of ASO. The existing agreement between the parties began in 2016 and expires this year.
The deal also adds women’s races to the Vuelta inventory: the Ceratizit Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta and Clásica San Sebastian women.
The Tour de France and Vuelta deals are pan-European across 54 countries, although the Tour rights do not cover France.
The Tour will be broadcast free-to-air in Belgium (by RTBF and VRT), the Netherlands (NOS), Switzerland (SRF, RTS and RSI), United Kingdom and Ireland (ITV), Spain (RTVE), Portugal (RTP), Italy (RAI), Denmark (TV2), Norway (TV2), Luxembourg (RTL), Slovakia (RTVS) and Slovenia (RTVSLO).
The Vuelta will be shown free-to-air in Belgium (VRT), the Netherlands (NOS), Denmark (TV2) and Norway (TV2).
Discovery-owned Eurosport remains a guarantor of both deals and will continue to screen the races across its platforms.