Will Disney strike a deal to end its YouTubeTV blackout?

A war has taken over media coverage. No, not one of actual consequence. This war, however, is imminently affecting your national pastime and your wallet.

This is a civil war within media. The combatants are the Walt Disney Company with it’s channels – including ABC and ESPN, plus the SEC and ACC networks – and Google, YouTubeTV’s parent company. The two entities failed to meet a carrier agreement, and all Disney channels are blacked out on YouTubeTV. That means that much of the nation will not have access to most of the weekend’s football content, as has been the case since the showdown a couple weeks ago.

“It’s our goal to restore Disney content to YouTubeTV, but if we can’t reach an agreement and their content is unavailable for an extended period of time, we’ll offer our subscribers a $20 credit,” Google says in its help center site.

There is doubt that this measly credit will appease legions of viewers who have had this topic repeatedly trending on social media since the deadline for an agreement passed. After all, Hell hath no fury like a football fan scorned.

For their part, Disney-owned ESPN, has released a flurry of statements naming YouTubeTV directly and even allowed viewers to watch games on the ESPN+ app for free and stream College Game Day on X. Disney and ESPN executives thought viewers would come running to their subscription-based apps. Many sports-aholics likely did, but clearly not enough, because ABC’s bravado drastically shrunk ahead of this past week’s Monday Night Football and the election coverage on November 4.

“Despite the impasse that led to the current blackout, we have asked YouTubeTV to restore ABC for Election Day so subscribers have access to the information they rely on,” Disney said in a statement. “We believe in putting the public interest first and hope YouTube TV will take this small step for their customers while we continue to work toward a fair agreement.” YouTube TV has not issued any further comments.

Disney insists it just has the greater good’s welfare in mind. Unlikely. This boils down purely to greed, for better or for worse. Ten million subscribers or viewers are at stake the longer this war of words and content continues. This will have disastrous implications for ad buyers who placed orders through Disney specifically factoring YouTubeTV’s numbers.

“If the NFL truly cares about its fans, the NFL will demand that YouTube and ESPN (two of the league’s broadcast partners) allow Monday Night Football to stream tonight, with or without a Google-Disney deal,” ProFootballTalk tweeted ahead of Monday night’s game.

There is some validity to that. Eventually, one of these monster corporations shall cave. But how long will the showdown last when YouTubeTV knows it remains in the driver’s seat? It also raises a question: how valuable are old-school cable networks that buy and license sports-rights deals carried on YouTubeTV, among other partners? In the digital world’s continued growth, it makes sense that Google and YouTubeTV may soon seek the rights themselves. They have already iced out several regional media channels such as Monumental Sports Network and didn’t bat an eye.

Gen Z rarely buys cable. In fact, this writer (a millennial) nixed cable in 2017 while still working in cable television. Nobody wants to pay a large package deal for a slew of channels unconsumed. YouTubeTV is a millennial’s and Gen Z’s option of choice. Google isn’t moving an inch because they know Disney will be forced to move miles – as it should. Disney seemingly elevated bad strategy over the needs of average customers.

Alas, when you don’t pay, you very likely won’t play, and Disney rightfully will not play while this blackout continues. When faced with similar negotiations with YouTube, Fox struck a deal in the 11th hour. At this moment, Disney only has itself to blame.