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No ESPN on a college football Saturday on YouTube TV? Get the torches and pitchforks!
We already know who the loser will be in a dispute between Google and Disney, and it’s not Google or Disney. It is those of us who feed those beasts.
Oct. 31, 2025 12:14 pm, Updated: Oct. 31, 2025 2:58 pm
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Today is my first full day without ESPN and ABC.
I am a YouTube TV subscriber and have been for about a month. I’d heard good things, mainly about its price compared to that of cable television. However, no one told me this could happen. No one informed me I could one day be without Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith and Tuesday night football games at Kennesaw State.
Tomorrow, there will be no Penn State-Ohio State football game in my home. Or Vanderbilt-Texas. Or Notre Dame-Boston College.
Fortunately, USC-Nebraska is on NBC. I kind of want to see those two renew their great Big Ten rivalry.
YouTube TV is owned by Google. ABC and ESPN are Disney properties. Who does one root for in a Google/Disney dispute over fees and whatnot? It’s like choosing between Dr. Doom and Magneto.
(Full disclosure: I don’t know a thing about Dr. Doom and Magneto, but figured if I named two Marvel villains I’d sound more current than choosing, say, Godzilla and King Kong.)
The learning never ends. For one thing, I realized there isn’t a prime-time series on ABC that I care about. Or can even identify, for that matter. For another, I’ve learned FX is a Disney property. I thought with the name “FX,” it was Fox.
I should have known better. FX has had a string of fine series over the years, from “The Shield” to “Atlanta” to “Justfied” to “Reservation Dogs” to “The Bear” to “Fargo” to “Better Things” to “Baskets.” I don’t watch much series television, but it always seems to be FX when I do.
This leads me to my No. 1 concern. Next Tuesday is the first-season finale of “The Lowdown,” a highly entertaining FX show starring Ethan Hawke. I must watch it. And somehow, I promise you, I shall.
The YouTube TV/DIsney thing will get resolved soon enough, once the money-mad executives of both corporations figure out how they’ll stick it to consumers like me.
Ah, maybe I’ll just spend the football Saturday reading fine literature. Not between noon and 3:30 p.m., though, because Arizona State-Iowa State is on a network Disney doesn’t control.
In the meantime, my personal boycott of using Google as my default browser continues. As does my vow to stay away from Disney theme parks. Sacrifices must be made in the name of principles.
Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com
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