The removal of Disney channels from DirecTV (including ESPN networks and owned-and-operated ABC affiliates on all DTV packages, and other ABC affiliates on DirecTV Stream packages) Sunday ahead of the USC-LSU game on ABC has sparked a ton of commentary and controversy.
One of the key elements there is debate on how long this dustup may go. Considering that major live sporting events are often crucial to ending these sorts of carriage disputes, it’s worth looking at what’s ahead on these networks and when the dispute could end.
Here are four potential timeframes.
Ahead of/on Saturday, Sept. 7
There are some major sports events on ESPN platforms this week, including regular studio programming, the US Open (which has some tennis fans aggrieved, including at New York’s Hudson Yards ), and BYU-SMU on ESPN2 Friday night. However, Saturday’s Week 2 college football slate is the next big live event day for ESPN and ABC.
The Disney networks do have an extensive slate that day. Some things to watch there include College GameDay , Arkansas at No. 17 Oklahoma State (noon ET, ABC), No. 18 Kansas State at Tulane (noon ET, ESPN), McNeese State at No. 20 Texas A&M (12:45 p.m. ET, SECN), South Carolina at Kentucky (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC), South Florida at No. 5 Alabama (7 p.m. ET, ESPN), and No. 15 Tennessee vs. No. 24 NC State (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
That last one is the only game Disney has on Saturday between two ranked teams, with the other one out there being No. 4 Texas at No. 9 Michigan (noon ET, Fox). Fox, CBS, and NBC all have various CFB slates beyond that. Saturday also has the US Open women’s tennis final in the afternoon on ESPN.
While that’s a lot of major sporting events, it might not be enough in its own right to push a deal.
Between Sunday, Sept. 8, and Monday Night Football on Sept. 9
While the US Open men’s final is on Sunday, Sept. 8, the next live sports event that will have people watching intently for a potential resolution is the season debut of Monday Night Football on Sept. 9. That highly anticipated game will see Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets at the San Francisco 49ers.
That game will have its main broadcast shown on ABC as well as ESPN (one of four simulcasts this year, plus three exclusive games). So that does provide some further options. It will be available on traditional DTV packages (but not Stream or the DTV app even for those with traditional packages, as ABC streaming rights are negotiated nationally; traditional DTV packages provided via internet rather than satellite are not classified as “streaming” and are not affected, though) in areas outside the owned-and-operated markets . It will be available via digital antennas and other ways to watch local broadcast TV.
However, the ESPN2 ManningCast broadcast (one of 10 regular-season ones this year) won’t be available for DTV customers, and there will still be some impact for those looking to watch ABC via DTV (including in the New York and San Francisco markets, home of two of those eight O-and-O affiliates).
Between Tuesday, Sept. 10, and Monday, Oct. 7
We’re going a long way out for the next option here. An Oct. 7 deal would see DTV customers miss a lot of big sports programming on ABC and ESPN networks. That would include the first month of the college football season and five further Monday Night Football games (which tend to be a bigger audience than most college football), with two of those ABC-exclusive and two of them ESPN-exclusive on Sept. 23 and Sept. 30.
It’s quite possible a deal could be reached at any point along here. However, the Oct. 7 MNF game (an ESPN exclusive) is worth a bigger spotlight.
That’s mostly thanks to the home team, the Kansas City Chiefs. The defending Super Bowl champions carry a lot of interest, to say nothing of their quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end/media figure/multimillion-dollar podcaster Travis Kelce. There’s also the interest around Kelce’s incredibly famous girlfriend, Taylor Swift, which will likely be an NFL story again this year.
While the expectations aren’t that high for the visiting New Orleans Saints, they will be playing hard trying to get to a home Super Bowl, and if they somehow come into this one with a decent record, it could be quite the in-demand game.
The end of the NFL regular season…or beyond
On some levels, it seems incredible to think of the idea of this dispute running for a full NFL season. A whole lot of DTV’s advertising focus has been on sports. It’s a big part of why they remain such an important player for many bars and restaurants (where they have agreements to distribute many other streaming-only packages, including NFL Sunday Ticket and Peacock) as well as individuals (Letiman Research had them as the third-largest multichannel video programming distributor at the end of 2023 with 13.1 million individual subscribers, behind only Comcast and Charter). Missing a whole NFL season on ESPN and ABC would seem quite devastating for them.
However, the stakes in this particular carriage negotiation are new and high . A large part of this is the reaction from DTV (and other MVPDs) to the ( legally blocked for now ) Venu Sports joint venture focused just on sports content from Disney, Fox, and WBD. DTV and other MVPDs have often lobbied for flexibility to offer just-sports (or other genre offerings), and have been shot down.
That’s key to what’s going on here , with DTV calling for that even before channels were removed and talking this idea up in several public statements (including on an investor call this week, an interesting and unusual move considering that it’s not publicly traded). Disney shot back with their own statement Wednesday claiming they offered DTV package flexibility.
Thus, the two sides seem quite far apart at the moment. It’s worth noting some carriage disputes are not resolved quickly, and others never get resolved.
A notable past one with DTV is the Pac-12 Networks, which they never wound up carrying. That was over the Pac-12 setting those up without an established media partner (who could have helped them through the “bundling” that’s particularly at issue here) and with a deal with rival Dish/Sling that was never going to work for DTV.
The inability to get a DTV deal was a big part of what doomed those networks, and eventually the Pac-12 (at least in its old form). ABC and ESPN content is obviously much more in demand than P12N content was, so there are higher hopes for a resolution.
But the longer the dispute goes on, the less incentive for anyone to make a deal. Those who are going to switch are most likely to do so relatively quickly (and that number is not always as high as you’d think; Charter claimed their losses of 320,000 subscribers from their 12-day dispute with Disney last fall were “less than expected.”)
So if a deal isn’t struck by Oct. 7, the next real pinch point might be the NFL playoffs. There, ESPN and ABC will have games in both the wild card round (Jan. 11-13) and divisional round (Jan. 18-19). And even that may not solve this.
When do you think the Disney-DirecTV dispute will end?
The post Four potential timeframes the Disney-DirecTV dispute could end in appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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