The inaugural Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift starts in Paris this Sunday July 24!!
We have a list of official broadcast partners around the world.
Some of the streaming sites may require a subscription, where over-the-air broadcasters may not.
Woah! No ITV4 in the UK?
I’m massively surprised - and disappointed - about that.
My wife asked me recently if ITV4 was going to show it and I said “they have to, they’ve always shown La Course, they always gave the Women’s Tour de Yorkshire equal coverage to the men’s race when they showed that, so with everything they’ve seemed to do for equality it would be weird if they didn’t show the Tour de France Femmes.”
For those outside the UK, ITV4 (or equivalent ITV stations) have provided free-to-air coverage of the Tour de France for the past two decades. When it’s on, highlights of the tour are the most popular show on the channel and the live coverage is among the most popular shows, so I can’t understand why they wouldn’t take the women’s version of the race and extend coverage for a week.
It’s disappointing for Zwift, too. They miss out on a sizeable amount of value and potential awareness from their sponsorship in one of their biggest markets.
I don’t know who’s made this happen - ITV, ASO, or someone else - but I’m sad about it.
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@Paul_Rayner
That is massively disappointing, and thank you for the context for Americans like me.
I’m not privy to the broadcast rights arrangements, but were I their viewer, I’d drop a tweet to the folks at ITV directly and let them know how you feel.
Thanks @shooj, I’ve contacted a couple of people at ITV through a couple of ways and the only response I’ve had so far suggested asking ASO. But it takes two to make or break a broadcast deal, so I’ll keep pushing.
I understand the ASO had to be pushed hard for many years to have a women’s race - and that sponsors like Zwift were a key part of making that happen - so I hope your marketing team keeps pushing ASO as much as you can to make sure the TDF Femmes - and Zwift’s sponsorship - get the exposure they deserve in the coming years. The push for equality never stops.
I feel the ITV deal (or lack of) is one which should be pushed specifically, as it seems a big missed opportunity.
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While I haven’t been directly involved in international sports broadcast rights negotiations, let’s just say that I was, at one point in my recent career, in the room next door and privy to the in-house information. This is a cut-throat domain and no mistake. I don’t have any knowledge of what was involved in the negotiations for the rights to this series, but with heavy hitters like Eurosport and GCN going in with continent-wide package offers, I can only imagine that ITV4 didn’t have the means to compete, or at least couldn’t justify the amounts required for 2022 TdFFaZ. If the 2022 edition does attract significant audience share where it is distributed and if there is a 2023 edition, maybe ITV4 (and others) will come in bigger and harder next time.
CNBC is only showing the last stage. US viewers need Peacock Premium to watch the whole race.
The TDFFAZ has been amazing so far.
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For those who don’t have streamer access to the action as it happens, the Tour organizers (ASO) have a live tracker website here: racecenter.letourfemmes.fr/en/
While it doesn’t show the broadcast feed, there is running commentary a la VeloNews’s Live Update Guy (minus the banter) for those who remember when that was a thing their journalist Charles Pelkey used to do every year.
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I don’t know if there are still free passes left for this event to watch on GCN, but you can try Want to watch us in action at the Tour de France Femmes? — Le Col - Wahoo
Just a note that even with peacock premium viewers don’t see the whole race. They appear to be truncating each stage by the beginning 50 to 60 odd kms both live and in replay, so you won’t see the start. Wish they were showing start to finish for each stage but they aren’t. Coverage definitely feels second class to the men’s.
Crazy that Peacock doesn’t show more of the race. I can’t imagine there is a significant extra cost to provide the full “world” coverage for their paying subscribers. Maybe Zwift would add a in-game Picture in Picture next year…
Also, the Tour Tracker website along with their apps have the TdFFAZ. It was worth the cost for me just for the notifications from the iOS app, not to mention all the maps, profiles, intermediates, etc.
Will have to check into the tracker option, thanks. 43 minutes into Peacock coverage they have not shown the course map or mentioned anything about today’s terrain. Not sure what’s up with that. But for the men Peacock had two separate channels for each stage, both showed the full race and had two different sets of commentators, one more chatty and also broadcast on the USA TV network and other more fact-y and only available on Peacock. I know these things follow the money and there’s a huge difference in sponsorship dollars I’m sure. But I would have thought they would show the whole race at least. I hope GCN is doing better.
Just curious, do they bleep the riders’ interview comments in the US broadcast?
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s the broadcasters who are shortening the race coverage, but the organizer. If there was coverage from the start the broadcasters would certainly show it (at least in the online platforms) as they did for Stage 1. It is costly to have the extra infrastructure in place for the entire race (helicopters, planes, motos, etc) and I would guess that the organizer doesn’t feel they can justify the cost. At least not at this point. Remember that there was even less coverage of women’s racing not too long ago, so things are at least headed in the right direction. If we all keep tuning in for the racing my guess is that the coverage, at least for the big races, will go start-to-finish before too long.
[quote=“Anna Ronkainen [AEO], post:14, topic:587082, username:Anna_Ronkainen”]
do they bleep the riders’ interview
[/quote]
No they didnt censor it
Hehehe, Uttrup Ludwig’s interview was boss! 
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Looks like you are correct on the call being made by the organizer, saw this this on cyclingtips.com: “The ASO has promised two hours of live coverage a day.”
Edit: Just spotted an interesting article on the Femmes in the New York Times
Well diagnosed @Nigel_Tufnel and well spotted @Lebasi_Lashley - this seems to be it. In the UK, Eurosport’s coverage today’s stage only started about 50k into the stage, so it looks as though ASO hasn’t offered to film or broadcast as much coverage as they do with the men (if I’m wrong on this then I hope someone can correct me).
Maybe that was because they didn’t have the take-up or income from broadcasters for them to feel it “made financial sense”, or maybe they simply assumed there wouldn’t be the interest. Either way, while the race is a step in the right direction, it means it hasn’t yet been given the same platform as the men. And we’ve all got to keep pushing for it to get better every year.
I’ve directly contacted the channel I usually watch Le Tour on (ITV, and not just on Twitter) to push them to cover the TDFF next time, and in the meantime I’ve paid to watch Eurosport’s coverage this year.
And yes, Uttrup Ludwig’s interview yesterday was “boss”. 
Great race so far. 
Listening to the Peacock coverage this morning they mentioned that the viewership numbers have been much larger than was anticipated. This certainly bodes well for getting start-to-finish coverage in the future.
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