YouTube TV, Fox Standoff Puts CFB Viewers in Jeopardy

This weekend, millions of YouTube TV customers could find themselves without access to Fox channels carrying marquee college football Week 1 matchups.

YouTube TV confirmed Monday in a post on X that it is “actively negotiating” with Fox to reach “a fair deal for both sides.” The streaming platform said that if the parties are “unable to reach an agreement by August 27, their content may become unavailable.”

In other words, if YouTube TV and Fox can’t reach an agreement by Wednesday, all of Fox’s sports programming—including Week 1 college football programming on Fox Sports, FS1, and the Big Ten Network—would be unavailable to YouTube TV subscribers this weekend. 

Fox Sports has rights to multiple major conferences, including the Big 12 and Big Ten. In fact, Fox Sports is slated to carry one of the biggest games of the week: a noon matchup between the reigning national champion Ohio State Buckeyes and the No. 1 Texas Longhorns on Saturday. This could potentially also impact the start of the NFL season and MLB matchups.

“If we can’t reach an agreement and Fox content becomes unavailable for an extended period of time, we’ll offer our YouTube TV subscribers a $10 credit,” YouTube TV said.

“While FOX remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with Google’s YouTube TV, we are disappointed that Google continually exploits its outsized influence by proposing terms that are out of step with the marketplace,” Fox Sports said in a statement sent to Front Office Sports on Monday night. “We are alerting FOX viewers who are YouTube TV subscribers that they could lose access to much of their favorite news, sports, entertainment and local station programming unless Google engages in a meaningful way soon.”

Fox One, the network’s streaming service, just launched at a $19.99 monthly rate.

YouTube TV is operated by YouTube and owned by Google. The streaming giant boasts more than 8 million subscribers, far bigger than other competitors like Hulu + Live TV.