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.

Auburn fired coach Hugh Freeze on Sunday, raising the total for buyouts in college football this season to nearly $185 million from 11 FBS firings.

Freeze, who signed a six-year, $39 million deal before the 2023 season, is owed $15.8 million for his exit, according to ESPN. The Tigers went 15-19 during Freeze’s tenure; his best season was a 6-7 campaign in 2023 that included a loss in the Music City Bowl. 

With Auburn letting Freeze go, four SEC teams—or 25% of the 16-member conference—have fired their football coaches since the start of the season, accounting for nearly $100 million in buyout money:

• LSU: Brian Kelly ($53 million)
• Florida: Billy Napier ($21.2 million)
• Auburn: Hugh Freeze ($15.8 million)
• Arkansas: Sam Pittman ($9.8 million)

The conference could see more turnover by the end of the year, too. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin is believed to be a prime target for LSU and Florida’s coaching vacancies, and Kentucky coach Mark Stoops earlier this season had to shoot down rumors he was negotiating a potential buyout.

Meanwhile, South Carolina fired offensive coordinator Mike Shula on Sunday, after Saturday’s loss to Ole Miss dropped the Gamecocks to 3–6 this season. Shula, who was named OC ahead of South Carolina’s appearance in last season’s Cheez-It Citrus Bowl, is owed more than $2.3 million in buyout money, per The State.

Buyouts Still Climbing

With Freeze’s firing, it is now even more likely that coaching buyouts in college football this year—already at a record amount—will surpass $200 million. As the college football coaching carousel spins—see every firing and buyout so far this season in the updated CFB firings tracker.

Other coaches on the hot seat with expensive, eight-figure buyouts include Florida State’s Mike Norvell and Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell.

Tom McKibbin became the first LIV Golf player to win his way into The Masters since Augusta National Golf Club changed its qualification criteria just over two months ago.

McKibbin, 22, on Sunday completed a dominant seven-stroke victory at the Hong Kong Open, which is one of six national opens that now give their winners spots in The Masters and Open Championship. The Northern Irishman earned $360,000 in prize money and improved his Official World Golf Ranking position from No. 109 to 85th.

Augusta National and the R&A (which operates the Open) announced new qualification methods in August, deciding to now award spots in their respective major championships to winners of the Australian, Hong Kong, Scottish, South African, and Spanish opens. In turn, The Masters is no longer sending automatic invites to winners of the PGA Tour’s fall series events, which it had previously done.

“Golf is a global game, and I think we always want to recognize that,” Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley said last month when asked about the move.

Last month, Naoyuki Kataoka won the Japan Open, and Marco Penge won the Spanish Open. In July, Chris Gotterup won the Scottish Open. None of those three players are affiliated with LIV Golf.

Small Win for LIV Golf

McKibbin’s win is also a key victory for LIV Golf, which is still not able to award OWGR points at its events, with the league’s fifth season set to begin in February.

Winners of LIV events don’t automatically receive spots in any of the four major championships. Regular-season and playoff PGA Tour events do earn invites to all four majors, though.

The Hong Kong Open is an Asian Tour event that is part of the International Series, which has a partnership with LIV Golf. There were 29 LIV players in the field at the Hong Kong Open. 

LIV players are eligible to compete in all six of the aforementioned national opens that now earn Masters invites, although qualifying for those tournaments is not guaranteed.

While LIV has several notable members who are former Masters winners— including Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, and Phil Mickelson, among others—no active LIV Golf player has won the Masters since the league launched in 2022. LIV’s Brooks Koepka won the 2023 PGA Championship, and Bryson DeChambeau won the 2024 U.S. Open.