ESPN, ABC, remain off of DIRECTV for MNF debut

Contrary to some expectations, the ongoing clash between Disney and DIRECTV has lasted into the start of the Monday Night Football schedule.

The Disney channels — including ABC and ESPN — remained off of DIRECTV for the season debut of Monday Night Football and there were no indications that the sides had made any progress toward a new deal. The most recent development in negotiations came on Sunday, when DIRECTV filed a ten-page complaint with the FCC accusing Disney of failing to negotiate in good faith .

In its complaint, DIRECTV repeatedly invoked Fubo’s successful effort to win an injunction against Venu Sports — the joint streaming venture of Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corporation — and accused Disney of bad faith for seeking to include a provision in negotiations that would prevent it from filing a similar suit.

By lasting into the start of the Monday Night Football season, the DIRECTV conflict has gone further than the clash between Disney and Charter a year ago, which ended in time for the first edition of MNF . Yet Monday was not the worst-case scenario for DIRECTV subscribers, as the Jets-49ers game was simulcast on both ABC and ESPN+. Most ABC stations are still available on the DIRECTV satellite service — only Disney-owned ABC affiliates are blacked out to satellite subscribers — and ESPN+ is a relatively low-cost option for those without access to ABC.

Next week’s Monday Night Football game airs solely on ESPN and ESPN2, meaning that DIRECTV subscribers will have no option but to purchase a competing cable, streaming or satellite provider in order to watch the game.

Disney has now had a major carriage dispute in three of the past four years, all during the football season — YouTube TV briefly dropped the Disney channels in December 2021 — but this is the first of those to result in subscribers missing an NFL game.

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