Steve Rider (born 28 April 1950) is a retired English sports presenter. Between 1985 and 2005, Rider presented a variety of BBC Sport programmes including Sportsnight, Rally Report and Grandstand. He was the anchorman of ITV's football coverage between 2006 and April 2010, and anchored ITV's Formula One coverage from 2006 to 2008. He was the lead presenter for ITV's coverage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. From 2009 to 2025, he was ITV's main presenter for the British Touring Car Championship. He announced in May 2025 that he would be retiring from presenting in June 2025.
Born in Dartford, Kent, Rider attended the John Roan Boys' Grammar School on Maze Hill in Blackheath. He began his career working for a newspaper in south-east London, the South East London Mercury, followed by writing for sports news agency Hayters.
Early in his career he was a sports reporter for LBC and also covered motor racing for Anglia Television, who he joined full time in 1977. In 1979 he became the presenter for Anglia's local ITV football highlights show Match of the Week. He hosted the programme from the 1979–80 season until the end of weekly regional football highlights on ITV at the end of the 1982–83 season. Later he became Head of Sport on the regional news programme About Anglia.
Rider got his big break reporting from the 1980 Summer Olympics for ITV, after the regional companies could not decide who of their senior reporters should to go to Moscow. He worked for both ITV Sport and ITN for several years providing reports for, and occasionally anchoring, the World of Sport programme and presenting for ITV's coverage of the 1982 World Cup. While anchoring World of Sport he was reprimanded for making a flippant remark about a wrestler, who had broken his collarbone, for not reading the script properly. He was also a presenter for some of the golf coverage on Channel 4 and presented some live European football for ITV.
Rider joined BBC Sport in July 1985, and his first role was to replace Harry Carpenter on the network's Sportsnight programme, which he presented for six years. In 1991 he became the main presenter of Grandstand, having previously deputised for Des Lynam. He also co-presented BBC Sports Personality of the Year and anchored most of the BBC's motorsports, rugby and golf coverage. Rider, along with Murray Walker and Tiff Needell, convinced the BBC to show regular coverage of the British Touring Car Championship and the British Formula 3 Championship on Grandstand. Rider was anchoring BBC's Formula 1 coverage when Ayrton Senna lost his life at Imola, where he described Senna's condition just after the accident as grave.
He also anchored the channel's coverage of the University Boat Race until 2005, every Olympic Games between 1988 and 2004 and every Commonwealth Games between 1986 and 2002. In 1996 ITV attempted to recruit Rider, when it was announced that Formula One coverage would move from the BBC to ITV. However, he chose to remain with the BBC and the ITV F1 frontman role was handed to Jim Rosenthal. In addition to sport, Rider also presented BBC's coverage of the London International Boat Show. His last assignment for the corporation came at the World Rowing Championships in Japan in the autumn of 2005. He was succeeded by Gary Lineker and Hazel Irvine in golf, John Inverdale for the rowing and rugby union and Clare Balding for rugby league.
In 2006 Rider said of the rumoured cancellation of Grandstand:
It was always felt to be a fundamental gesture about (BBC) commitment to sport if Grandstand were to be abolished
Rider was also critical of the BBC's selection of Gary Lineker to present golf:
For four years, the R&A and most other observers knew that Gary was the wrong man for the job. Golf presentation especially at Augusta, is seat of the pants, unpredictable and demanding
In September 2005 it was reported that ITV had secured Rider's services and he would replace Jim Rosenthal from 2006 onwards to present coverage of Formula One. He later said that a factor in his decision to move network was the BBC's unwillingness to agree his long-term future. He told The Times,
I went...to the BBC and said Look, you know me as a presenter, you know the way I work, the way I want to work, I want to make a long-term commitment to encompass 2012. They did not feel able to do that and it was easy to make a decision [about my future] from that point on.
In March 2006 Rider made his coverage debut on ITV, appearing on a Formula One preview show for the new season. Later that year he was chosen over Gabby Logan to be the main presenter of ITV's coverage of the 2006 World Cup.
ITV's early withdrawal from its F1 contract was announced on 24 November 2008, handing the coverage back to the BBC. Rider commented on the contract cancellation,
But the explanation when it came was cold and brutal. At ITV, overall advertising revenue had taken a dive as the recession drew closer, and in terms of sports rights, the company had to prioritise its targets. [..] In order to pay for the [Champions League football] bid, something had to go. Formula One.
Rider was not offered a contract to return to the BBC in 2009. The anchorman duties on BBC Sport were given to Jake Humphrey.
Rider started to present coverage of the British Touring Car Championship in 2009, which he continued to host until 2025. Rider said of the BTCC in 2012,
The viewers not only have a wide variety of car to look forward to but also, in 2012, the increased spectacle that the latest Next Generation Touring Car regulations will bring with turbocharged engines and flaming exhausts,” he said. “In some ways it's taking an element of the iconic RS500 days with their turbos and performance in the early Nineties – an era which people still recall with great affection – and adding it to the modern-day BTCC with its many great different makes and models of car.