Iride01 

Not sure what this really means, but in the ever shifting NBC sports media arena, this is the current madness.

https://www.nbcsports.com/gold/premier-league

roogie

Looks like they are moving to the Peacock Network of course so they won't be automatically charging subscriptions. Also appears there is a Cycling only option that is abouert half of the old NBC Gold price of ~$55 USD making irt around $26.

slcbob

It looks like I can get rugby and cycling for less than I was paying for either. So that's good. Unless they're monitoring this and are on to me.

bmcer

One major fly in the ointment. Peacock apparently doesn't support Samsung TV's without buying a Roku, Google Chromecast, Apple TV, or the like.

horatio 

My Roku cost $25.

philbob57

If you get 'net from Comcast, they'll give you a streaming box they call the 'Flex', which includes a Peacock Plus subscription.

Iride01 

Well I got bit last night. I didn't pay attention to when my subscription toe NBC Gold Cycling Pass would actually lapse. Well turns out it was the end of June 8th. I tuned in to watch the stage 6 replay of the Dauphine and was told I couldn't watch it.

So I went to Peacock real quick to sign up, then noticed a blurb that said they didn't have any cycling content currently. So I didn't sign up.

Really? No replays? Sucks for me I suppose. I guess I'm one of those that got caught out in the dark with all this ownership and contract rights to sporting event footage being held tighter than you know who's hat band.

I'll live.... just my exasperation at having to adapt to new things. Does anyone know if Peacock Premium has the Dauphine replays?

sdmc530

I noticed they are still doing a NBC sports coverage so I will see how that goes before I get the Peacock deal.

Snotrub

Ditto, but after the Stage 8 Dauphine fiasco, I'm not holding out much hope.

slcbob

I was thinking "of course I'll get Peacock." It is cheaper than the old NBC Sports Gold cycling pass alone, plus it throws in rugby, a bunch of NBC stuff, and maybe some other things I might eventually care about.

My new thing I love is the nifty Chrome browser plugin from Strong VPN that lets me emulate being in London (or wherever) for the browser, without fiddling with any VPN settings or messing with my router or whatever. Easy on/off to be able to watch GCN for the Tour de Suisse.

I still may get Peacock, but even if I do I suspect I'll watch more of Le Tour on the GCN+ feed via that spiffy feature.

Laptop -> Chrome browser -> literally three clicks to turn on London proxy -> open GCN in a tab and navigate to race -> Chromecast to TV.

Iride01 

I just got off a chat session with Peacock. They don't seem to be able to find information on what cycling events they are going to have available either.

My initial question was asking if they had replays of the Dauphine available. After waiting quite awhile, they came back and claimed that stages 17 - 21 were available! Knowing that they were talking about the Giro, it took another question to make them realize that. So evidently no Dauphine replays.

They were also not able to point me to any schedule of cycling events that they intend to have available. I did find in a Google search that they do claim to be able to let subscribers see the 2021 TdF. But that's not enough to make me want to try even the free 7 day trial then have to go through what ever hassle trying to unsubscribe is.

Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong. Maybe they just do the streaming of whatever NBC shows. But it seems odd they can't tell me what that schedule is.

I guess I'm joining the crowd of others that were already fed up with NBC changing up it's online viewing and streaming services every other year. It's much like IBM when they started changing the names of their telephony products and creating subsidiaries for them and eventually selling them off altogether between 1998 and about 2004.

slcbob

^ yup, that's tough. I see their links are all garbled up right now. Ugggh.

Even when you find cycling events listings, way too often you don't get what you want. Like GCN shows it carries the Tour de Suisse, but it's geo-restricted from the US. And FloBikes has some nonsense indicating that they're carrying the Dauphine and Le Tour, but it's only in Canada or some flimsy highlights thing. At times in the past you'd get things that were only live not on demand or DVRable, or vice versa.

I'd put it at a coin flip whether the Dauphine rebroadcasts are available on Peacock. If not today, then maybe in a week or two when they unscrew themselves. It was available until just recently on NBC Sports Gold. Though maybe that won't port over.

I would bet the back 40 and Hop Tsing's topknot that the Tour will be on Peacock live and on demand.

The one I'm curious about is La Vuelta. Pretty sure that's ASO now so that means NBC, but I can't remember (either way) seeing it in the broadcast calendar before all went dark on June 7th with the end of Cycling Pass.

Iride01 

I think it's a coin flip too. Especially since their live chat people couldn't answer the question.

I have been trying to avoid spoilers and being careful to not let my eyes read things that might give me clues about the Dauphine. I've even avoid the online Cycling magazines I usually browse and https://www.procyclingstats.com/. I made it through Stag 5 on NBC Gold and things had just gotten interesting. So I really would like to watch the remaining three stages.

Especially since this comment was made here...
I guess it's time to search YouTube. But the full broadcast posts usually pulled down or else I'm not good at finding them. And I haven't even looked for five or six years since NBC Gold provided most of what I wanted to see.

slcbob

The fiasco was a broadcasting audio feed debacle. Nothing to do with race action.

bmcer

Never mind the fact that Peacock currently has only very, very limited cycling content, it is completely useless unless you're content to watch it on your phone. The old NBC cycling pass allowed me to stream to my TV (a Samsung "smart" TV) via Apple Airplay. The Peacock app apparently has no idea what that is or how to connect to it. I'm not about to cough up more money for whatever additional "pieces" seem to be required to get the races on my TV. Don't know what NBC was thinking, but they've going to loose a big piece of what used to be their audience.

Marcus_Ti

NBC, the people who make all sporting content unwatchable. No thanks. It is cheaper for me to VPN into the EU and watch the ASO races on GCN than it is to pay for Peacock without ads. The ASO races as basically the main things they have the monopoly license on, why ASO does that to themselves--I don't understand.

NBC can DIAF.

Iride01 

Yeah, I'm probably not doing Peacock either unless they get their act together and can show me a cycling schedule.

It kind of hit home the other day when I realized that NBCSN seems to consider auto auctions a sport worthy of more airtime than any of the other sports I care to watch.

bmcer

I've sent an email off to Greg Hughes, NBC senior VP, expressing my displeasure. Probably won't change anything, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't frequent this forum.

Chicago Al 

I am happy to report that it is not difficult or expensive to access GCN+ in a manner which allows one to view their programming as one wishes.

Those conversant with US history of the Civil War may recall the story that Abraham Lincoln, out of patience with his dithering general-in-chief George McClellan, asked if he might borrow the Army of the Potomac, since McClelllan wasn't using them for anything.

I think Eurosport/GCN+ should approach NBC about their rights to broadcast cycling with that spirit.

Heck, if they outright forged the papers and stole the rights I doubt NBC would notice or care.

Pemetic2006

Can you be more specific because I have GCN plus and as fas I know the TdF is not available to US viewers.

thanks.

diphthong

pm a few members in this forum that are more tech savvy such as slcbob for deets. waay beyond my stegosaurus re-re real time capabilities.

Marcus_Ti

NBC would sue Discovery Channel into oblivion--and would win. Discovery owns Eurosport. That is right--all this could be avoided if Discovery just aired Eurosport on this continent to start with--they choose not to.

DLBroox

I used Tunnel Bear a couple of years ago and watched the Australian feed. Ten bucks for the month.

Snotrub

I just bought 15 months of VPN through ExpressVPN for $99.99 so I can watch the GCN feed of the Tour, Vuelta, etc. I'm now watching the replay of the French National Championships. WOOHOOO!! Screw NBC.

BTW, it was super easy and you can do a monthly service for $9.99 a month as well. It took all of 5 minutes to download and install.

Sean Kelley is talking now and even though I'm using a UK server, I still can't understand him.

Snotrub

In addition to the above, I went through my Direct TV schedule guide last night and NBC Sports are only broadcasting the 1st stage and I didn't see any other broadcasts but it only goes out a couple of weeks. So, it doesn't look good for someone that doesn't have a subscription someplace.