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Monday Night Football—which includes one of the NFL’s biggest draws this week—is looming over the ongoing Disney–YouTube TV carriage dispute, which led to the entirety of ABC and ESPN’s weekend college football slate being blacked out for the No. 4 U.S. pay-TV distributor’s estimated 10 million subscribers.
More than 20 Disney channels, including all ESPN networks, have been unavailable on YouTube TV since midnight on Friday, after the two sides failed to reach a new deal.
Next up, ABC and ESPN are set to simulcast Monday night’s Cardinals-Cowboys matchup, which will close out the league’s Week 9 action as America’s Team (3-4-1) looks to improve its record to .500 this season.
Dallas, which hasn’t been back to the Super Bowl since winning it after the 1995 season—a stretch that has included just five postseason victories—continues to be a ratings draw and has played in two of the five most-watched games this NFL season.
Earlier this fall, the Google-owned YouTube TV was able to reach key carriage agreements with Fox and NBCUniversal before missing any major sporting events. However, the latest negotiations with Disney have turned out to be more contentious. This has turned out to be the most impactful carriage dispute since Disney’s feud last year with DirecTV led to the 2024 MNF season opener being unavailable for the satellite TV provider’s customers.
The Old College Try
On Saturday, ABC had another SEC tripleheader featuring five teams ranked inside the AP Top 25, and ESPN broadcast SMU’s 26–20 upset of No. 10 Miami, as well as the Cincinnati-Utah contest that was the site of the popular College GameDay pregame show earlier in the day.
ESPN made College GameDay free to stream on its app, amid the YouTube TV carriage dispute, but all game broadcasts on ABC and ESPN networks still required standard subscriptions.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey also weighed in Saturday afternoon, posting on social media that he had updated his streaming subscriptions. “Problem solved,” he wrote. “Plenty of options in this environment (saved a bit while making the change).” Games involving teams from the conference accounted for nine of the 10 most-watched games through last week’s action.
Viewership for this past weekend’s games will be available Tuesday.
