After missing two weekends of college and professional football, YouTube TV subscribers will finally have their access to ESPN restored.
The deal was announced Friday night.
“We’re happy to share that we’ve reached a deal with Disney to bring their content back to YouTube TV,” read a post on X from the YouTube TV account. “Subscribers should see channels including ABC, ESPN, and FX returning to their service over the course of the day. Thanks for your patience and being a valued member.”
According to ESPN’s PR account, the companies reached a “multi-year distribution agreement.”
YouTube TV subscribers will also get access to ESPN Unlimited, the company’s recently launched streaming service, at no additional cost, reported Andrew Machand of The Athletic.
“Disney’s quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts Thursday morning served as a pseudo — but not absolute — deadline to force some movement in the negotiations," Marchand reported Friday. “The Athletic reported Wednesday that there was potential renewed momentum, though the two sides were still haggling over how to treat Disney’s lesser-watched networks, like Freeform and National Geographic. As part of the agreement, all of Disney’s channels will continue to be part of YouTube TV’s service.
“On Wednesday night, major progress was made, putting the deal in the red zone, but was not completed in time for Disney CEO Bob Iger to make an announcement during his call with analysts.”
Subscribers to the streaming platform lost access to ESPN and ABC at the end of October. Disney’s networks broadcast college football games from the SEC, Big 12 and ACC in addition to the NFL’s Monday night football.
Utah and BYU football on ESPN networks
The nationally ranked Utes and Cougars both play on ESPN’s networks this weekend.
No. 13 Utah’s Big 12 game against Baylor in Waco, Texas, will be broadcast on ESPN2.
No. 12 BYU will face TCU at LaVell Edwards Stadium in a game broadcast on ESPN.
Both schools were featured on ESPN’s popular “College GameDay” — from Salt Lake City and then Lubbock, Texas — during the outage.