Fans who use YouTube TV might want to brace for another weekend of scrambling.
Videos by FanBuzz
Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reports Disney and Google remain "far apart" in negotiations to bring ESPN and ABC back to YouTube TV. That means no college football again on Saturday. And Monday Night Football is looming too. Eagles vs. Packers is three days away.
If this doesn't get settled, YouTube TV subscribers will once again have to find a different app to watch one of the biggest games of the week.
This has become a frustrating pattern, wrote Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. FOX already cut a deal with Google in August. Comcast did a deal in September. Disney is the only remaining holdout. And millions of consumers are stuck in the middle — without ESPN, without ABC, and without the sports programming they're paying monthly to access.
There are workarounds. But they involve new subscriptions, new logins and new money.
Meanwhile, ESPN continues to deploy talent to push messaging like "go visit this website to complain" and it's not landing. Community notes have hit multiple ESPN PR posts on X. Personalities who fell in line are getting dragged.
ESPN employee Pat McAfee even called out the entire PR strategy on his own show — saying fans shouldn't have to hear corporate talking points when all they want is access to games.
Bottom line is as simple as it gets, Florio wrote. This is a money standoff between two giants. And the people paying for YouTube TV are the ones losing weekends over it.
