As DirecTV and Disney continue negotiations over a new contract, college football fans will be left scrambling for options to watch Week 2 games across the ESPN network.
Nearly 20 college football games are scheduled on an ESPN network on Saturday. Currently, DirecTV subscribers do not have access to ESPN , ESPN2 , ESPNU , ESPNews , SEC Network and ACC Network . Some customers have complained about access to ABC , too.
Over 11 million DirecTV subscribers will be left without access to games as of Saturday morning. It’s the second consecutive college football season Disney has been in a stalemate with a broadcasting company. The entertainment company was in a dispute with Charter Spectrum a year ago that lasted more than a week.
Disney’s channels went dark on Sunday before USC and LSU’s top-25 matchup in Las Vegas . The carriage dispute also left DirecTV customers without access to Boston College’s win at Florida State on Monday night.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the dispute centers around an increase in fees that Disney is looking for to carry popular channels plus DirecTV’s desire to have more flexibility in how it sells those channels to customers.
Week 1 of the NFL season kicks off this weekend, which could bring the two sides together. ESPN is scheduled for Monday Night Football , featuring the New York Jets at San Francisco 49ers , on ESPN and ABC in under 60 hours. The “ManningCast” with Peyton and Eli Manning will also be broadcast on ESPN2 and ESPN+. That date will be a driving factor in the two sides reaching an agreement.
DirecTV sent letters to every college football commissioner this week, writing that “Disney’s unwillingness to evolve will significantly accelerate the decline of Pay TV, making it harder and more expensive for your fans to watch the teams they love.”
“DirecTV continues to misrepresent the facts around our ongoing negotiations,” Disney Entertainment co-chairmen Dana Walden and Alan Bergman and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement this week. “Our priority is to reach a marketplace deal that serves the needs of DirecTV and their customers while also recognizing the value of our top-quality content and the significant investment required to create and acquire it.”
Nearly 20 games are set to be on an ESPN network for Week 2 of college football. The problems for DirecTV subscribers do not stop there, however, as College GameDay kicks off at 9 a.m. ET on ESPN live from Ann Arbor.
Here is every college football game on a Disney/ESPN channel:
Noon ET
12:45 p.m. ET
3:30 p.m. ET
4 p.m. ET
- UTSA at Texas State (ESPNU)
4:15 p.m. ET
- Middle Tennessee at Ole Miss (SEC Network)
7 p.m. ET
7:30 p.m. ET
7:45 p.m. ET
8 p.m. ET
10:15 p.m. ET
- Liberty at New Mexico State (ESPN2)
10:30 p.m. ET
Last year, Disney urged Spectrum customers to cut the cord and switch to Hulu + Live TV . If the dispute with DirecTV and ESPN carries on, the entertainment giant could make a similar push.
Fubo offers live sports at $79.99 a month and is offering a free trial.
YouTube TV starts $72.99 a month, which is a tad pricey but the streaming service now holds the Sunday Ticket TV package. It is currently running a $ 64.99-a-month promotion for the user’s first four months.
And Sling , typically priced at $40 for the first month, is offering a $20 sale to get fans on the platform. The company is leaning into the DirecTV and Disney dispute, too.
DirecTV is also offering customers $20 credits, as a consolation. Subscribers can apply for the credit on an upcoming bill.
The post How to watch: DirecTV, Disney dispute impacts Week 2 of college football appeared first on On3 .
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