DirecTV deal with Disney and ESPN coming sooner than expected?

If you’re a sports fan with DirecTV, you’re down pretty bad as Disney channels including all of the ESPN networks have been missing from your channel lineup for nearly a week amist a very public and hotly contested carriage dispute. More and more these disputes have become common with sports fans being held ransom, often being forced to pay extra to get access to the sports they want to watch .

We did an article earlier this week in which we looked at some possible timelines of when the DirecTV and Disney/ESPN dispute could potentially end in a new agreement . A lot of experts seemed to think it was very possible this could drag on for weeks, making this one of the more impactful and high profile carriage disputes ever. Sure, some channels have disappeared for weeks, months, and years…..but ESPN and Disney have nearly always been able to muscle their way into new agreements with mostly minimal disruption (although that’s started to change the last few years).

Our poll showed readers were pretty evenly split on when the carriage dispute may end.

But for the nearly 42% of voters who were pessimistic something could be worked out ahead of the Week 1 Monday Night Football game between the 49ers and Jets, we have some good news for you as Puck’s John Ourand reports in his highly recommended newsletter , there seems to be some industry confidence and chatter the dispute may end before the high profile Monday Night Football game.

“The consensus among my best sources is that DirecTV and Disney will reach an agreement by early next week, probably before the Jets-49ers Monday Night Football g ame, which will be simulcast on ABC and ESPN. The truth is that Disney can stand to hold out longer than DirecTV.”

Ourand goes onto outline what a deal is likely to look like in which DirecTV would win the ability to market smaller sports focused bundles that don’t include ALL of the various Disney cable networks that have been attached to ESPN in negotiations.

If you’re reading this and are not familiar with Ourand and are unsure of how much stock to place in his update, I’d just say Ourand is one of the most, it not the most, plugged in sports media reporter there is with a wide network of sources and someone who has historically had a very good batting average when making predictions.

All that said, who knows how this will play out. However after nearly a week of mostly ominous posturing and analysis on the dispute, we’ll cross our fingers that the pain and inconvenience customers are experiencing will have a shorter window than many are predicting and bracing for.

Sports fans are hostages in carriage disputes and we often pay the ransom

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