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College football fans might be waking up to another full weekend mess. If YouTube TV and Disney do not reach a deal in the next 48 hours, ESPN and ABC are about to go dark again, right before another loaded Saturday slate. Word on the street: millions of fans could lose the two biggest college football broadcast pillars over a money fight they unfortunately cannot control. And according to college football insider, this blackout is already approaching record territory… and still climbing. On November 10th, College football insiders, Rich Greenfield hopped onto X and poured gasoline on the panic with some brutal context for college football fans. He pointed out that the feud is heading into historic territory. “Still two days to go for ESPN / ABC / Disney to tie the longest blackout ever – @DIRECTV was 13 days in September 2024 and missed one MNF game and one Saturday of College Football Current YouTubeTV blackout is 11 days including two Saturdays of College Football and tonight would mark second MNF game.” ADVERTISEMENT In other words, if a deal isn’t done basically any second now… this could become the longest major sports blackout we’ve ever seen right in peak college football chaos season. The whole Disney Channel mess on YouTube TV is still going strong because of a fight over money between Google and Disney. The blackout started on Halloween, and with tonight’s Monday Night Football game, we’re looking at 12 days without those channels. This isn’t a new thing, though; DirecTV had a similar spat back in September 2024 that lasted 13 days. That one missed one MNF game and a Saturday of college football. This current YouTube TV outage is now just one day away from tying that record, meaning fans are really feeling the pain. These things boil down to “carriage fees.” Basically, the cash YouTube TV pays Disney to show its channels. Disney wants more money, and Google is saying, ‘No way, that’ll mean higher prices for our subscribers.’ Google’s hinting that Disney is just being greedy and trying to push people over to their own service, Hulu + Live TV, while Disney is firing back, saying Google isn’t playing fair for their valuable content. It’s a classic corporate standoff, and the football fans are just casualties of the corporate war. ADVERTISEMENT We have seen these two companies go at it before, back in 2021, but that got fixed in less than two days. This time around? Not so fast. They’re still miles apart in their talks, so this blackout could easily keep going. The longer it drags on, the more annoyed subscribers get, and some are even thinking about ditching YouTube TV altogether. To try and smooth things over, YouTube TV has offered subscribers a $20 credit. Well, that didn’t quite work out for them. Instead, it completely backfired. Read Top Stories First From EssentiallySports Click here and check box next to EssentiallySports ADVERTISEMENT YouTube TV’s collateral fees for the inconvenience The timing couldn’t be worse, especially with the blackout stretching deep into another weekend of huge matchups on ESPN and ABC. On Sunday night, YouTube TV notified customers via email that they will get a $20 credit because of the ongoing dispute with Disney. Obviously, it comes with a catch and disrspect. YouTube TV said that users will receive another email in the next few days with instructions on how to manually claim and redeem the $20 credit. This alone set off another wave of backlash, as many fans felt YouTube TV was making subscribers jump through extra hoops instead of simply applying the refund to everyone. And at this point, most fans feel that $20 just isn’t enough to make up for missing massive live sports broadcasts during peak college football season. With two weekends already impacted and MNF games now gone too, fans are fed up with this feud. If Disney and YouTube TV don’t reach a deal fast, many subscribers may end up canceling or finding another way to watch ESPN.
