YouTube TV subscribers were left scrambling for alternate ways to watch college football on Disney’s networks on Saturday.
The carriage dispute between Google and Disney wasn’t resolved by the time that games kicked off at noon ET. While customers with an antenna could watch ABC’s slate of SEC games over-the-air, they were out of luck with any games that were on the ESPN family of networks.
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Other streaming services certainly benefitted with an influx of new subscribers as fans of teams in the ACC, Big 12 and SEC playing on ESPN, ESPN2, and the conference’s networks couldn’t watch the games. YouTube TV has roughly 10 million subscribers as customers have ditched linear cable in favor of streaming to watch television networks.
The two parties had a deadline of Thursday to reach a deal. Saturday was the second day Disney’s networks — and recordings of shows on its networks — were removed from YouTube TV.
It’s far from the first dispute between Disney and a TV provider during the college football season. Fans are always caught in the middle in these disputes as major event programming is used as a cudgel. At the start of the 2024 college football season, Disney channels were off Directv for 13 days as the two worked on a new carriage agreement.
That dispute impacted Monday Night Football as well, and the NFL could be affected if an agreement between Disney and Google isn’t reached by the time the Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys kick off. Fans with an antenna would be able to watch that game on their local ABC affiliate, but that’s not an option for everyone subscribed to YouTubeTV.
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Because of the impasse with Google, ESPN streamed its “College GameDay” pregame show for free on Saturday morning and the ACC, Big 12 and SEC even sent out messages imploring fans to visit a website where they could contact YouTubeTV about the dispute and even switch TV providers.
