Eurosport brand to disappear from British screens as WBD consolidates portfolio.
- TNT Sports to operate four linear channels
- Cycling, tennis and other content will shift over
- WBD sees opportunity to expand reach of Eurosport properties
Eurosport will cease broadcasting in the UK from 28th February, with its live sports content absorbed into Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) stablemate TNT Sports’ portfolio.
WBD says the move will create a single destination for British sports fans, adding key tennis, cycling, snooker and winter sports rights to TNT’s lineup of Premier League, Uefa Champions League and FA Cup soccer, as well as Premiership Rugby and MotoGP.
The integration will also see TNT Sports become the main UK broadcaster for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games and the 2028 Summer Olympic Games.
Scott Young, group senior vice president, content, production and business operations, at WBD Sports Europe said the plan was always to bring TNT Sports and Eurosport’s content into a “single destination for sports fans”, but the priority since the former’s launch had been to integrate production teams and raise awareness of the new brand.
“We never set a hard date for this transition,” Young told journalists. “We just wanted to do things in the right order. It was important for us to get through the full first season of soccer, rugby union and MotoGP and make sure the brand landed [with consumers].”
With the closure of Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2, WBD will have just four linear channels as opposed to six. However, Young said that WBD had been simulating schedules for the past year to ensure there were no major clashes or instances where TNT Sports would have to prioritise one sport over another.
Even so, many rights holders whose events have been shown on Eurosport, which has traditionally been included in basic pay-TV bundles, face a potential reduction in exposure by shifting to TNT Sports, which requires an additional subscription.
Young, though, argued that TNT Sports would be able to amplify reach by scheduling these events alongside major competitions like the Premier League, which would also offer cross promotion opportunities.
“We’re going to put tier two and tier three properties alongside some of the biggest events in the world,” he said in response to a question from SportsPro. ”We’ve seen an 82 per cent increase in Premiership Rugby viewership because it’s shown directly alongside the Premier League and there are interactions between the two broadcast teams [on screen].
“We’re confident of the ability to amplify [the impact] of the sports currently on Eurosport and believe there are significant opportunities.”
Similarly, it seems as though distribution partners like Sky, EE and Virgin Media are not concerned about losing Eurosport, one of the main selling points of their standard pay-TV packages, given all have signed new carriage deals. TNT Sports is also available on a direct-to-consumer (DTC) basis through Discovery+, while it will be a pillar of WBD’s Max streaming service when it debuts in the UK in 2026.
The development does not affect Eurosport in other markets and WBD has also said it will expand the range of sports content on its Quest free-to-air (FTA) channel, including live coverage of MotoGP sprint races, highlights of major events and documentaries.
All sports content produced in the UK will be TNT Sports branded. However, Eurosport has historically distributed the same video feed of content across multiple territories, adding local audio and graphics. Meanwhile, Eurosport’s UK coverage of several sports, such as alpine skiing, features interviews and contributions from Eurosport teams in other countries.
This could make it a challenge to maintain two separate brands. Yet, WBD says it has technology that will ensure TNT Sports-branded graphics can automatically be added to its UK feed, while WBD-branded microphone heads are already used by several presenters.
Ultimately, Young is not concerned about the two brands being used in the same broadcast if it can’t be avoided.
“Eurosport has been part of UK sports broadcasting for 35 years,” he said. “We’re not precious about a Eurosport microphone appearing on TNT Sports – we expect our audience to know Eurosport and TNT Sports are all part of the same WBD family.”
Credit: https://www.sportspro.com/news/eurosport-closing-tnt-sports-warner-bros-discovery-uk-channels-max-launch-january-2025/