For the third Saturday in a row, popular ESPN personality Pat McAfee announced he will provide a live stream of Week 12’s ESPN College GameDay on his personal X/Twitter account at @PatMcAfeeShow. McAfee has provided this unique service each of the last three weekends amid the ongoing carriage dispute between Disney and YouTube TV.
“You know there is a dispute going on between two parties and there are a lot of people missing ball and missing things that they love, just know that on X tomorrow, GameDay will be live and for free (on my X/Twitter account),” McAfee announced Friday on his show The Pat McAfee Show, which is dual-streamed on both ESPN and YouTube. “Shoutout to ESPN, Jimmy Pitaro, Burke Magnus, Ol’ Fosso (Mike Foss), and everybody that said, ‘Yeah, lets continue to do that. That’s good for our fans, that’s good for football, and that’s good for unifying ball fans, which is certainly something that we need at this point. So we’ll be live on X tomorrow and it should be a scene (in Pittsburgh).”
This Saturday’s College GameDay will be televised live Saturday morning beginning at 9 am ET from the University of Pittsburgh ahead of the Top 25 non-conference game between No. 9 Notre Dame and No. 22 Pitt, which kicks off at 12 noon ET on ABC.
Disney CFO claims ESPN will continue fight with YouTube TV ‘as long they want to’
As mentioned, unless a resolution happens before Week 12 games kickoff at noon Saturday, this will be the third consecutive weekend that all Disney networks — ABC and the ESPN family of channels — will be blacked out for YouTube TV subscribers amid their contractual dispute. And, based on recent comments from Disney executives, the stalemate could continue indefinitely.
“We’re ready to go as long as they want to,” Disney chief financial officer Hugh Johnston reportedly told investors during Thursday morning’s quarterly earnings call, according to the Sports Business Journal.
Disney CEO Bob Iger also defended the company’s hardline stance with YouTube TV, which is reportedly costing the company $5 million per day, during Thursday’s earnings call. YouTube TV’s blackout of all Disney programming — including ABC and ESPN’s family of channels — hit 14 days on Thursday, the longest it has had with a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD).
“The deal we have proposed is equal to or better than what other large distributors have already agreed to,” Iger said, per Sports Business Journal. “We are not trying to break any new ground. While we have been working tirelessly to close this deal and restore our content to their platform, it is imperative that we make sure we agree to a deal that reflects the value that we deliver, which both YouTube and Alphabet have told us is greater than the value of any other provider. The offer that is on the table is commencing with details that were already struck with distributors larger than they are.”
The ongoing carriage dispute has been particularly costly for YouTube TV customers within the SEC footprint. They have missed out on the last two weekends of SEC football games on both ABC and ESPN’s additional channels like ESPN2 and the SEC Network.