Cord cutting revisited

[mu_hilltopper]

62% of the US doesn't watch college football, doesn't care about sports in general.

I'm good if YoutubeTV never carries any of the ESPN channels again.

[MU82]

Me too. I'll just cancel YTTV and go with a different distributor.

[BM1090]

If anyone has YTTV and wants to watch the game Sunday, Fubo has ESPN and offers a 5 day trial. Order it Friday and you'll get MU Sunday and the Packers Monday

[MU82]

From The Athletic's "Money Call" e-newsletter:

I totally get the business disagreement, because it's been the same issue ad nauseam since the cable bundle ascended more than four decades ago: Disney wants X dollars per subscriber from YouTube TV, and YouTube TV would like to pay less than X.

What makes this iteration of the age-old battle between content company and distributor a bit different? In short, neither of these sides currently needs a deal to happen.

YouTube TV's parent company Alphabet (market cap $3.35 trillion) doesn't really need YouTube TV at all. (It's a "nice to have, but not Nvidia," so to speak.)

Disney (market cap: $200 billion) is in the business of selling its content to the broadest audience possible, but its revenue from YouTube TV isn't existential.

It's worth noting that ESPN does pay the NFL around $2.7 billion per year for its game rights and makes hundreds of millions in revenue related to those rights, so losing out on a couple million potential viewers for a "Monday Night Football" game isn't an ideal ROI.

And so those of us who generally like the YouTube TV offering are left hanging. We're not necessarily switching (although there are very viable options), but a flimsy $20 credit from YTTV after a nebulous "extended period" of missed games didn't really help me last Saturday during that inaccessible SEC football tripleheader.

They will eventually resolve this negotiation, but it isn't like previous ones, which wrapped up before the blackouts really started.

We are one missed college football Saturday, one missed NYC Marathon, one missed "Monday Night Football" game (and "ManningCast") and one CFP fake-bracket reveal into this, and there might be more misses to come in the week (or two?!) ahead, which I would not have predicted a week ago. We're in "unstoppable force meets immovable object" territory.

[Pakuni]

Monday Night Football ratings were down 21% from the same week in 2024.

https://awfulannouncing.com/nfl/monday-night-football-rating-falls-cowboys-cardinals-espn-youtube-tv.html

[TallTitan34]

If anyone has YTTV and wants to watch the game Sunday, Fubo has ESPN and offers a 5 day trial. Order it Friday and you'll get MU Sunday and the Packers Monday

I currently have YTTV but I just began the Fubo five day trial.  It seems like a pretty good deal.  And for you Illinois sports fans it includes Marquee and Chicago Sports Network.

[muwarrior69]

Youtube just signed an agreement with C-SPAN so they have to cut something I guess.

[Pakuni]

I currently have YTTV but I just began the Fubo five day trial.  It seems like a pretty good deal.  And for you Illinois sports fans it includes Marquee and Chicago Sports Network.

I imagine I'll be doing the same tomorrow or Saturday morning if this thing isn't settled by then.

[MU82]

I imagine I'll be doing the same tomorrow or Saturday morning if this thing isn't settled by then.

Same here - Sat morning will do trial with DirecTV or Fubo.

[Jay Bee]

Youtube just signed an agreement with C-SPAN so they have to cut something I guess.

https://youtu.be/PRzuDnRIYaw?si=q0KYN1i9vf9AMpo5