ESPN retains Tour de France rights in LATAM in new deal with ASO

Disney-owned ESPN has renewed its rights deal with cycling’s Tour de France in Latin America and the Caribbean for a further five years.

The new deal with the Amaury Sport Organisation runs from 2023-27, and covers the Tour de France along with the newly created Tour de France Femmes, La Vuelta a España, Critérium du Dauphiné, Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift, La Flèche Wallonne Femmes, Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes and the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta.. 

The pair have renewed a partnership that first started in the region in 2018.

The broadcaster has exclusive pay TV and digital rights, and will broadcast full coverage of each rage stage on Star+ in Latin America and ESPN Play in the Caribbean. ESPN will also broadcast linear coverage of the last two hours of stages on its linear channels.

Michael Walters, vice-president of programming for ESPN, said: “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.”

Julien Goupil, media and partnership director at ASO, the event promoter, added: “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 recent years and plenty are yet to come on ESPN channels and platforms.”