The inaugural UCI Cycling World Championships, which brought together 13 separate UCI World Championships into one major event, has broken viewership records within the disciplines.
Over 80 million people watched the event held in Glasgow and across Scotland from 3 to 13 August in Europe, with 18.2 million viewers in France, 15.5 million in Italy, and 11.9 million in the UK.
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On French public-service broadcaster France Télévisions, the UCI Cycling World Championships road events achieved record audience figures with the men's elite road race attracting 1.8 million viewers, while the women's elite road race generated 1 million viewers – the most it has had since 2013.
In the UK, 963,000 viewers tuned in for the downhill mountain bike races in the men's elite and women's elite categories on the BBC, marking the first time the competition was broadcast on the public broadcaster's main channels.
In the Netherlands, average viewership for the men's elite road race was 886,000 viewers, a significant increase from the 338,000 audience in 2021 and peaking at 1.7 million. An average of 1.14 million viewers, meanwhile, watched the race on public broadcaster Rai in Italy, peaking at 1.65 million.
In Denmark, TV2 Sport broke its market share record for the men's elite road race, with 41% over seven hours and a peak of 474,000 viewers, compared to 35% and 156,570 in 2021.
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By GlobalDataFinally, in Germany, public broadcaster ZDF attracted an average of 940,000 viewers, peaking at 1.22 million for the women's elite road race.
Figures were helped by the inaugural event bringing together the various cycling disciplines and their audiences and its coverage on major European channels.
Eurovision Sport, a division of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), acted as host broadcaster for the event on behalf of the UCI to produce coverage of the event. Sports marketing agency IMG distributed the rights to the rest of the world.
Overall, the Championships were broadcast on 93 television channels in 130 countries on five continents.
UCI’s social media coverage amounted to 245.2 million impressions and 7.2 million engagements, with almost 90 million total views of videos published on UCI’s various channels.
Eurovision Sport executive director Glen Killane said: “On top of having been host broadcaster for the whole event, we are proud that Eurovision Sport has brought together Europe’s biggest free-to-air broadcasters to secure maximum exposure for this fantastic event.
“We always aspire to maximize value for stakeholders and have been delighted to work with UCI to help create a must-see event, enabling millions of cycling fans to be part of the action.”
UCI president David Lappartient added: “The first edition of the UCI Cycling World Championships was an unprecedented success. The event saw around 8,000 athletes (elite and amateur) from 132 countries take part in the various disciplines on the program.
“On the first day of competition, the 192nd UCI Congress in Glasgow brought together representatives from 151 of the 203 National Federations affiliated to the institution. Never before in the history of our International Federation have so many members gathered together.
"The TV figures show that the public massively followed the UCI Cycling World Championships competitions and that events and disciplines that do not normally benefit from such a high level of TV and media coverage benefited greatly from the increased exposure that will boost their popularity and development at international level."
