This is the most important aspect of the YouTube TV agreement with Disney for ESPN Unlimited content. Eventually, there will no longer be a need to switch between YouTube TV and the ESPN app to watch events exclusive to ESPN Unlimited. Forcing distributors to pay for ESPN

Fubo TV, owned by Disney, has chosen to initiate a blackout with NBCU. Interesting how Disney went from being the one pushing for high carriage rates on YouTube TV… to now being in the opposite seat as the distributor pushing against carriage rates on their own Fubo TV service.

The next potential blackout is coming before the end of the year with FuboTV needing to negotiate a new carriage agreement with NBCU.

However, NBCSN will provide College Basketball coverage from Peacock on Tuesday night.

Coast 2 Coast NBA Tuesday will not air on the new NBC Sports Network. Since Tuesday games are regional on NBC, (except in the El Paso market) there is no way for NBCSN to carry the other game. If you want both NBA games on Tuesday night, you will need a subscription to Peacock.

NBCU relaunching NBC Sports Network as a distribution funnel for Peacock programming for pay-television subscribers is the way. I would prefer importing all Peacock live streams into YouTube TV, because you’ll still need Peacock for Premier League simulcasts, but it’s progress.

YouTube TV las launched NBC Sports Network on the Base Plan as of Noon ET on November 17, 2025. Remember, if you have a Custom Guide you must add the channel manually for it to appear in the list. First live broadcast on NBCSN will be NBA on Peacock Milwaukee at Cleveland 7p/ET

When the late afternoon Sunday NFL window doesn’t have a particular game of interest, we default the multi-view game audio to wherever @GregOlsen88’s assignment takes him.

YouTube TV has succeeded in “breaking” the old way of carriage negotiations with The Walt Disney Company. Consumers will receive certain ESPN Unlimited content within the YouTube TV interface. More to come… https://t.co/x8zdDRyOv8

Might be the best distribution deal for PAC-12 in a long time.

Heard @Lucas_Shaw on ‘The Town’ with @MattBelloni (November 10 Episode) and it feels like Disney has, for the first time, run into a distributor who happens to have the most savvy consumer base in the entire pay-television industry. YouTube TV has the most resilient consumers.

Ouch. No wonder Disney is adding more Monday Night Football simulcasts on ABC. ABC is available over-the-air for free to 85% of the population.

Disney adding additional simulcasts of MNF on ABC is their way to mitigate viewership losses from not having ESPN available in up to 9+ Million households. Ad sales units are taking a beating, but Disney and ESPN’s PR are trying to accentuate positives, hide the negatives. (End)

Disney has been, rather quietly, adding additional simulcasts of Monday Night Football to ABC, which is available to nearly 85% of the U.S. population at no charge. Cowboys @ Raiders on 11/17 is now an ESPN on ABC simulcast. This is a signal. Let’s look… (🧵 1/2)

Then, it breaks data down further by dictating who cares enough to leave for what is generally agreed as a inferior user experience elsewhere vs. those who want to stay with YouTube TV, but would like to see the ESPN and/or ABC content returned. It does save money, too. (🧵 2/2)

This is a process in the pay-television industry known as “raise your hand”. It provides valuable, niche data by differentiating b/t consumers who may casually watch ESPN, but don’t necessarily care enough for pricing action, and the consumers who do care about ESPN. (🧵 1/2)

YouTube TV subscribers can begin to claim their one-time $20 Credit due to Disney’s unreasonable demands for us to receive ABC and ESPN content. We were able to claim our credit on Sunday, November 9 by logging in using a web browser and going to: Settings > Updates

We talk about YouTube TV and Disney, but look at these numbers for WWE’s cable-only product in the U.S., which is broadcast on Versant’s USA Network. Their savvy fans know they can receive this and the ESPN Unlimited PLE’s via Netflix + some knowledge about I.P. address systems.

Not how pay-television service works. Those carriage and retransmission fees are paid per subscriber, per month. Google surely won’t lose money on the base plan, so if you really want Spectrum or Comcast pricing, you’ll need to go ahead and switch to your local cable company.

Disney executives sent a memo across the company talking about Disney's continued blackout of ABC and ESPN from YouTube TV subscribers: Team, We promised to keep you updated on our negotiations with Google’s YouTube TV following their decision last week to pull our channels