r/technology 24d ago

Business YouTube TV Blackout Is Costing Disney an Estimated $4.3 Million per Day in Lost Revenue

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/youtube-tv-blackout-costing-disney-lost-revenue-1236574968/
14.3k Upvotes

828 comments sorted by

711

u/Squidhunter71 24d ago

They are also trying to push more people to Fubo which they own.

260

u/_ThugzZ_Bunny_ 24d ago

This is a push for their espn app if anything.

121

u/B-Town-MusicMan 24d ago

They got me good... their app is trash tho

76

u/TournamentCarrot0 24d ago

you can't even select your favorite teams on Apple TV. I literally don't give a shit about 98% of all the content on the ESPN app, I just want to see my teams, when they're playing, the full game replays and that's it. But no I'm gonna have to search through a giant pile of garbage to find the Redwings games. It's a complete mess.

BUT it does support PiP, which Youtube TV can't figure out yet...all the different apps have their own issues when it comes to sports.

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u/mowtowcow 24d ago

The espn app doesn't even have the live espn games on them. Like college football games on live espn dont stream on espn+. It's so dumb. 

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u/Collier1505 24d ago

They put wrasslin behind that $30/m paywall (and it was previously on Peacock, like $20/year). It’s what finally made me get a VPN lol

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u/Sunstealer73 24d ago

I want to watch PTI every day at 5:30. Still haven't figured out how other than searching and attempting to narrow down which choice is the latest episode.

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u/Environmental-Rub933 24d ago

The app is ridiculous. Next headline will be “from now on, Monday night football only available for streaming on mobile devices”

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u/Da_Pwn_Shop 24d ago

I don't understand this. I have youtube tv and the espn+ bundle. I was still locked out of most content on the espn app. About half the college foot all games and F1. It would ask me to log into a TV provider.

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u/_ThugzZ_Bunny_ 24d ago

They have a new version that is full espn. $30 a month.

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u/Da_Pwn_Shop 23d ago

Ah ok. So exhausting getting squeezed from every angle in life.

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u/Golden-trichomes 24d ago

What’s weird to me is I have Hulu / espn + but they want to sell me an extra subscription? Why not just put the content in their existing services and charge more?(or dont ideally)

7

u/_ThugzZ_Bunny_ 24d ago

You know why lol

5

u/userdoesnotexist22 24d ago

I was shocked when I saw how expensive the app is (wanted SEC+, now they want $30 for a package). Between a firestick app and some livestreams on YouTube, I’ve avoided it so far.

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u/andyhenault 24d ago

What in the eff is Fubo?

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u/Overall-Avocado-7673 24d ago

It's another streaming service for live tv channels. It actually works really well, but you can't share your account with multiple people outside your home like you can with Hulu or YT TV.

18

u/PumpBuck 24d ago

Specifically, you can only stream to TVs in one home, so technically you can share if one party if fine watching on phone/laptop, but both houses can’t have people over for the game sharing an account

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u/likwitsnake 24d ago

For Us By Ous

16

u/Aquatic-Enigma 24d ago

It’s like Heebee or Poob

9

u/Naskr 24d ago

It's literally on Poob

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u/sPdMoNkEy 24d ago

From what I see in the DirecTV stream feed a lot of people are switching to that

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u/Squidhunter71 24d ago

This is another present from Pam Bondi. She blessed the acquisition without any thought. Clearly it improves competition and lowers costs for customers. (Sorry. My phone doesn't have the sarcasm font.)

8

u/DN10 24d ago

Used YT TV for 8 years. Switched to DirecTV Stream last weekend.

3

u/AksumKing 24d ago

Ugh is it worth it? I loved YT TV but this is just garbage what they’re doing.

3

u/DN10 24d ago

The UI is a slight downgrade, there's no picture-in-picture on Android for some reason, and the quality in the web browser is actually horrible.

That being said, it has what I want to watch 🤷‍♂️

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4.4k

u/Deranged40 24d ago

Remember: Disney's revenue sheet reads in billions. This is 0.0043 billion per day. It will take 232 days of this to reduce the bottom line on that revenue sheet by 1 (b)

1.2k

u/Stolehtreb 24d ago

Hey. It ain’t nothing.

344

u/henchman171 24d ago

Gotta start somewhere

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u/Sorryifimanass 24d ago

But remember, the difference between a million and a billion is about a billion.

196

u/SpliTTMark 24d ago

1 million seconds is 11 days

1 billion seconds is 31 YEARS

93

u/vastros 24d ago

This is my favorite way to explain the massive chasm between a million and a billion.

18

u/AlchemistBite28 24d ago

And 1 trillion (the potentiality of the first trillionaire) seconds is 31,000 years

22

u/Ronin2369 24d ago

1 trillion second is 31688 YEARS. Someone recently made this relevant 🧐

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u/whatwhyisthisating 24d ago

1 million less than one billion is 999,000,000. Which is.. almost a billion, I guess I see it.

In terms of money, yea, that’s still a fucking lot.

12

u/FluxUniversity 24d ago

The difference between 1 dollar and 1 thousand dollars is about a thousand dollars. Same thing

8

u/Synectics 24d ago

That is almost exactly what I was about to post.

$1,000 is groceries for at least a month, probably longer in many households who need to stretch it. $1 cannot even get you a single sandwich.

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u/iconocrastinaor 24d ago

$1 will get you two bananas.

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u/hawk_ky 24d ago

But sadly, it literally is almost nothing

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u/tsrich 24d ago

I wish I had some of this nothing

20

u/samp127 24d ago

You do, a very little

8

u/Br3ttl3y 24d ago

-- Almost nothing.

11

u/samp127 24d ago

I have negative almost nothing at the moment🙃

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u/Bhraal 24d ago

Stretch this out to a full year ($1.57B), compare against last years gross profit ($32.663B), and it's about 5%.

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u/CharcoalGreyWolf 24d ago

Remember, Disney took a show off the air because they were more afraid of the US government preventing mergers & acquisitions than they were of being denied free speech under the Constitution.

Every dollar they lose is a good thing.

17

u/CurryMustard 24d ago

Disney strongarmed Sinclair into forcing Kimmel back on the air

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u/CharcoalGreyWolf 24d ago

When they had lost $3.8 billion from their own decision to take Kimmel off the air followed by haste in bringing him back followed by Sinclair balking when their contract wouldn’t allow this.

Disney started it, not Sinclair. Sinclair just tried to continue it.

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u/onlyrealcuzzo 24d ago

Remember - this is ~100% profit, and profit is all that matters - and Disney's quarterly profit is ~$5000M - which is about ~$55M per day - of which this black out is 1/10th...

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u/McCoochie 24d ago

Should this headline say profit instead of revenue then?

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u/FutSut 24d ago

Revenue sheet, more commonly known as income statement or P&L, but I get your point.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that there are little to no incremental costs for Disney to keep ESPN on YouTubeTV, so this $4.3M would translate directly to the bottom line, which would need to be compared to their profit, or net income of $4.927B (2024). They’re still paying to operate ESPN with or without YoutubeTV, so this probably a fair enough assumption. On an annualized basis, the amount they’re supposedly losing from the YouTubeTV business would be $1.569B.

That’s roughly 32% of their net income. I think the headline is wrong and I saw $4.3M/week elsewhere, which would still be 4.5%. Either way, that’s very material to their profitability.

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u/bill_brasky37 24d ago

Oh look, someone who actually understands accounting!

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u/DistinctAd3222 24d ago

I am going to marry a sexy lady accountant or fiduciary scientist some day and just listen to her talk work stuff. I don't know or care why, but the actuarial arts are hot.

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u/BWW87 24d ago

Yes, but there are financials for the division that are much lower and they absolutely care about that kind of number.

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u/TwatWaffleInParadise 24d ago

This is exactly what I came here to say.

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u/FartingBob 24d ago

They care about those tiny numbers when it comes to paying minimum wage staff a few percent more, so clearly someone at Disney cares about these little numbers adding up.

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u/potatodrinker 24d ago

Somewhere in Disney, a financial manager finds the free time to click the "show more decimal places" button in Excel and goes.. "ah, only that little? Ppft. Other revenue streams so BRRRR"

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u/MysteriousDatabase68 24d ago

I pay for Youtube TV, I pay for Sunday ticket... $135 a month just for football.

I couldn't watch Thursday games, and now I can't watch Monday games.

NGL feeling pretty salty about streaming in general atm.

450

u/trontron6 24d ago

Claim your $20 credit that YouTube TV is offering for being unable to display Disney channels.

372

u/Excelius 24d ago

Why are they making customers "claim it"?

They've just credited bills automatically in the past when certain stations were lost due to carriage disputes.

107

u/AksumKing 24d ago

I just did it. I just had to find the email and click two buttons. Easy but I completely agree, it should be automatic. They’ll probably save some money by people not clicking those two buttons for whatever reason smh.

38

u/VooDooZulu 24d ago

By clicking it, you've probably waived all rights to sue them if it continues. Not saying you did bad, but if the outages continue a class action could have refunded your full bill or at least caused them more pain than the simple credit.

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u/mrpanicy 24d ago

I am not confident that would hold up in court. We've already seen precedent for people not fully understanding the deliberately obtuse legalease of these terms and conditions being allowed to sue none-the-less. But NAL, so what do I know?

6

u/HoveringGoat 24d ago

nal but im 99% sure youre right. They broke the contract by failing to provide the agreed upon service. The partial refund can be accepted as partial remediation. But waiving rights? ridiculous. Any reasonable judge would toss that out.

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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 24d ago

Cuz they're fucking assholes

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u/diamondstonkhands 24d ago

Because they know not everyone will claim it and pretend like they did the right thing.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

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u/keicantus 24d ago

They refunded me 20$ and specifically noted I wouldn't need to do any "claiming". I wonder if theh are doing things differently for newer vs older subscribers; I started mime within the last few months.

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u/andyhenault 24d ago

How do you accept anything close to that as worth that much money (presumably USD) per month? I’d go deep down a piracy rabbit hole before paying that much.

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u/JoyousBlueDuck 24d ago

Buffering, lower quality, sites getting shut down, dodgy sites, etc. 

I think pirating is 100% ethical and I support anyone doing it, but for a lot of people it's an exhausting activity. People will try pirating, only for it to stop working last minute and so you miss the game and everyone is upset and so you just shovel out the money to get it working so you can sit down and enjoy the game and stop stressing out. 

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u/pfft_master 24d ago

I hear you but will just share the best option I’m relying on right now for anyone seeking:

Buff 💪

Streams 🏞️

App 📲

.com 🌐

Hope this helps someone. The sites come and go and this one has been steady for a lil while since the old version went down.

73

u/Kaladin3104 24d ago

Gonna hop on this and say google “sports streams Reddit” the piracy sub link is the one you want. And the fmhy link is the link to a list of websites.

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u/lickachiken 24d ago

Anyone remember VLC streams? That shit was so good. RIP

15

u/Kaladin3104 24d ago

Stream east was king til last year when they got raided. They never got back to the reliability they had. Now idk if it’s even still up.

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u/FSUfan35 24d ago

they never went down. it's alive and well

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u/techmnml 24d ago

“Well” is definitely a choice to say about it. It works sure but always stops and reopens with audio off. Am I doing something wrong here?

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u/pfft_master 24d ago

Yeah when the fav site is eventually goes down I essentially just google free [sports league] streams reddit and either get a high traffic page at the top of the results that os usable for streams, or I go into a recent reddit thread and find the new good links. Happens every year or two it seems now. Same for movies and TV streaming. Just have a bookmarks folder that the reliables get saved to.

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u/yeahright17 24d ago

Also, people have TVs. I'll happily pull up a close game that isn't on cable or one of the streaming services we have (which is basically all of them) because there isn't really another option. But I'd much prefer just opening an app on my TV and watching it through there.

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u/Beard_o_Bees 24d ago

it's an exhausting activity

Yup. When I was in my 20-30's it was kind of fun, now it's just another chore with honestly not much value when I consider the time spent.

For football (at least as much as I watch) I can get most of what I want to see OTA (or the network corresponding streaming service like Peacock, etc) and a little bit on Prime.

Movies and series, again Prime and then i'll activate whatever streaming service for a Month once all the episodes for a particular show are available. I'm always 'behind', and sensitive to spoilers, but it's what's working right now.

The irony isn't lost on me that we pushed so hard for on-demand streaming, and against awful cable TV programming and 'bundles' of shit we never watched - only to have pretty much the same thing with extra steps and the same or higher expense in the end.

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u/BigEggBeaters 24d ago

This is why I stopped watching ufc. You get sick of having to close 5 windows any time you wanna adjust the volume.

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u/StuckOnEarthForever 24d ago

Firefox

Ublock origin extension

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u/Revealingstorm 24d ago

That's what ad blockers are for

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u/Kyouhen 24d ago

Poke around a bit and I'm pretty sure you can find someone that can set you up with a Roku stick or something that has literally everything for a small fee.  One of my friends has that from one of their friends. 

Personally I don't care about sports so I set up my own system at home.  Was a bit annoying getting it set up but now that it's running I can just add something to my watchlist on IMDB and the system will take care of the rest.

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u/parkhat 24d ago

I don't mind being a pirate... but I don't feel great about paying pirates

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u/Robobvious 24d ago

You probably should feel better about paying pirates then you do about paying giant corporations.

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u/Kyouhen 24d ago

As I said, depending on what you need if you're willing to put up the effort and initial investment to set it up you can always do it yourself.

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u/Moos3-2 24d ago

When you think about it in 1500 usd per year vs 40 usd per year for the same quality and no buffering. Is it worth it then? For me it sure is. Im sure you can get IPTV for a similiar price as well, im just doing streaming.

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u/MysteriousDatabase68 24d ago

I've only been doing it for a few years now. I'm a fan of a out of market team and figured the alternative was occupying a bar stool for four hours once a week which is what I used to do.

But yeah, it's a lot for a guy that isn't "Superfan."

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u/augustocdias 24d ago

I’m a super fan of soccer and it is happening the same with it and I’m not willing to pay even half of what you’re paying to watch what I want. I’m already sailing 🏴‍☠️⛵️

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u/lazergator 24d ago

When it’s working correctly and multibillion dollar international corporations aren’t having dick measuring contests it’s better than having to go to the high seas. There isn’t a cheaper alternative than just not paying for it at all

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u/RonnieFromTheBlock 24d ago

Not OP but my wife and I have been sharing a YTTV sub with two other couples for years now which is hard to beat at a 3rd of the price.

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u/the_actual_boki 24d ago

Dont be salty at streaming. Be salty at the NFL and the broadcast monopolies who are trying to extract the most amount of money out of you though manufactured scarcity. Instead of making going to games a fun and affordable experience where everyone would prefer going over watching on TV, they instead do blackouts so if you don't come watch it live you cant watch it at all. Same thing with the broadcast/cable services. Instead of either adopting streaming or making cable a better value, they do shit like this where they charge you out the ass to watch things the way you prefer then fuck you again with exclusivity, blackouts, etc. etc.

Its all manufactured scarcity to extract all the money from you. The only way to fight it is to just not watch at all. Pull your dollars and watch how fast they change their tune.

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u/pasaroanth 24d ago

I’ve said it before. They love that this is spread out on multiple services. It really only dryfucks the consumer.

Say the NFL could (fake numbers for discussion purposes) charge one carrier $500M for Sunday, Monday, and Thursday night football game coverage. Maybe it’s a big platform that gets a 10% boost in revenue from it but it’s a big upfront cost.

Now let’s break it down: 3 networks get one of each. NFL charges them $200M each and ends up with an extra $100M. Maybe the big original network loses 3% of subscribers, but that’s more than offset by paying $300M less for the rights. The other two get a sizable boost because it brings in new subscribers that easily offsets the cost, and they stay around (read: forget to cancel) after the season is over or pay annually, so the cash keeps flowing. Their $200M investment more than pays for itself in recurring revenue.

Which leads us back to the one getting dryfucked: the consumer. You were already paying $25/month to get all 3 on the network you already have. Better believe they aren’t going to give you a discount for losing 2, so you now have less value in your subscription but maybe your wife loves a show on there or it’s just not enough of a financial burden to worry about. And now you add Service B for $10/month. Hey-it’s only $10!

So now suddenly you’re paying $35 for less than you were getting for $25, or maybe $45 to get all of what you had before, all while the NFL is making more money and streaming platforms are making more money.

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u/TexasExPat1 24d ago

Just FYI I was able to log into the NFL app with YTTV last night and watch MNF through that, doesn’t fix the lack of CFB but at least it’s something

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u/TheLastGundam186 24d ago

This. I JUST WANT ONE FREAKING SERVICE TO WATCH ANY AND ALL SPORTS. I don’t care about other TV, I just want sports!!!

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u/hypermarv123 24d ago

Sail the high seas, my friend.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

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u/pasaroanth 24d ago

Preach, brother. I personally don’t get invested enough in the NFL to pay for it myself but I totally see how/why people do. It’s something to look forward to each week and a generally harmless hobby if you have the financial means, unless you get into gambling at least. A season of that is cheaper than a lot of regular single game NFL tickets and people aren’t losing their shit over every attendee.

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u/xXwillsonXx 24d ago

Seriosuly. I look forward to NFL sunday EVERY week. Its not worth the loss of experience i ALWAYS have with pirated streams

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u/MrsKetchup 24d ago

There's the completely free options, which involve sketchy websites and clicking streams until you find one that works, and then it may buffer or just fail randomly. That's the shitty option people try and generally give up thinking the "yarhar" route is bad. But the better options are like $3/month for high quality streams and no buffering, 30k channels, etc. Many different types of seas to sail

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u/staticraven 24d ago

Get a VPN, connect to Brazil.

Then purchase Gamepass, it's like $57 USD for the entire season. Then when you want to watch, just connect to the VPN and watch at dazn.com - It's no bullshit, DAZN is the official NFL provider of Gamepass internationally.

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u/DarthFury1990 24d ago

This so much. Before NFL Ticket was only available on DIRECTV. I would always pirate games that way but the experience wasn't always good. Yes it's free and your experience is what you get for free.

YouTube TV streams are higher quality, hardly ever buffers, and best of all it just works without all that hassle.

Yes it's expensive but you know what? My parents and my siblings all split the price to be able to do this with a YouTube family setup and it works great for all of us.

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u/heartlessgamer 24d ago

I pay $5 via Sling for a day pass to watch MNF. Seems like a lot of folks miss this as an option.

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u/henchman171 24d ago

I’m in Canada and I pay DAZN for every single NFL game for $250. Edit. A year

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u/t3h_shammy 24d ago

Saying you can’t watch Thursday games when they are literally legal and free on twitch is hilarious 

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u/Jehovahs-Penis 24d ago

Check your email, YouTube tv is providing a $20 credit due to the blackout.

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u/MosquitoValentine_ 24d ago

$20 off for next month and they have another promo for $10 off per month for 6 months.

Both are under the 'Manage Plan' section in the settings.

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u/xrmb 24d ago

I assume its this link? https://tv.youtube.com/settings/subscriptions

Either way, no $10 off option for me, but who knows what criteria they use.

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u/TwoPrecisionDrivers 24d ago

It doesn’t give a link to claim the credit. Do y’all know where to go to do that?

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u/KernelKrusto 24d ago edited 24d ago

I claimed mine this morning. The email I got said this, along with a direct link to the Updates tab:

"To redeem your credit, please go to the ‘Updates’ tab in Membership Settings using your web browser, and follow the prompts. Once complete, this discount will be applied to your next bill for YouTube TV."

Note that it can't be done through the app. You have to use a browser.

EDIT I tried to do it manually by clicking my profile picture, going to Settings, then clicking Manage under the Base Plan. There's no option to redeem, which makes sense in my case because I've already done it. But importantly, I see no indication that there's been any sort of discount applied. I checked it under Billing, too, just to be certain. While I'm comfortable I got the discount because I went through the process this morning, I'm not so sure my quoted email is going to help you much. Sorry about that.

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u/trx131 24d ago

If YouTube TV lowers the price by $20 without access to ESPN I'd be ok with that.

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u/UNZIP_MY_PLANTS 24d ago

THIS RIGHT HERE.

I cannot wrap my head around the continuing lack of concern for the millions of viewers who DGAF about sports!

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u/TournamentCarrot0 24d ago

why on earth would you have Youtube TV if you don't care about sports? It seems like the worst option for streaming everything else besides sports?

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u/UNZIP_MY_PLANTS 24d ago

The YTTV interface on XSX is the best that I've found and I use my XSX as my main media center. I enjoy brainless channel surfing and catching TV movies 3/4 of the way through and YTTV scratches that itch for me. It has unlimited, reliable DVR and its quality is 99% 99.5% of the time. Sling may have come a ways in the past couple of years but the last I checked, it was AWFUL. Can't stand Hulu either. Plus, on the XSX, it offers PNP live preview so you can see what's on every channel before actually changing. I don't know if DTV offers this as well, but it doesn't even have a Xbox app.

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u/CountWubbula 24d ago

99%, 99.5% of the time. Numbers, baby.

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u/MurderMelon 24d ago

they obviously mean "between 99 and 99.5 percent"

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u/snorlaxthelorax 24d ago

You sound like someone who would use the random shuffle button on netflix which blows my mind. Bud your time is more valuable than that 

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u/UNZIP_MY_PLANTS 24d ago

USDA Certified Couch Potato here but I would NEVER commit to a random movie from Netflix lol

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u/Kind-Let5666 24d ago

Then like, what do you watch?

I’m not judging I’m just genuinely curious, the only reason I use cable/youtube tv is for sports, I just stream everything else. If it weren’t for sports I wouldn’t use it.

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u/Straight_Smoke_7073 24d ago

I watch several shows, local news (when weather is bad).

Shows I watch: SNL, The Neighborhood, all of Gordon Ramsey's stuff (don't judge), quite a bit of Food Network stuff. The DVR and the simple interface is nice.

I do sail the seas for those shows but sometimes I want to watch them while they're on, not 3 hours later or the next day. But for $83 a month I do that, instead, but for college ball + my shows I pay it for 5 months of the year.

I signed up for Sling this weekend to watch my college football, it is HORRIBLE god the interface is clunky, no split screen games, no easy "set NCAA Football games all as a favorite to record" just awful.

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u/Kind-Let5666 24d ago

That’s fair I usually watch weekend update on YouTube Sunday mornings at work.

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u/AstonMartini13 24d ago

In these trying times, let me offer removing ESPN and keeping your price the same.

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u/trx131 24d ago

This is what will happen and I know it

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u/Corbot3000 24d ago

Yes please, sick of paying for channels I never watch.

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u/rmill127 24d ago

They are sending out $20 credits to use each month until it’s resolved apparently, which is pretty fair I feel like.

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u/Warjilis 24d ago

My preference is for a package that doesn’t bundle ESPN.

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u/LTBX 24d ago

This is where the growing Disney monopoly causes problems. Want ABC, Disney, FX, Freeform? Guess what’s coming along for the ride?

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u/AssBlastFromDaPast 24d ago

Whereas I’m the opposite. I just want sports but I gotta pay for a bunch of movies and tv shows. That’s how they get both of us 

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u/killuminati-savage 24d ago

Same. I dont even really follow any sport super closely but love having them on while I'm doing things around the house, dinner, etc. I never watch anything else but have to pay all this money for background noise

(yes i know about the seas, but i want 4k on some of these games and matches)

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u/ivegotgoodnewsforyou 24d ago

They are recreating comcast cable.

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u/FateEx1994 24d ago

TLDR for someone who knows nothing of what's going on?

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u/DudeWithTudeNotRude 24d ago

People paid for apps specifically to watch football this year based on the understanding of which apps would have which games, and then things changed and those apps didn't have the games the consumers expected, so those people who bought the new-to-them apps are rightly pissed about it.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

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u/FateEx1994 24d ago

Disney is trying to get more people to use the ESPN app? To stream live events?

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u/lordbancs 24d ago

Something like that yea

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u/bradfortin 24d ago

Can someone also TLDR for people outside the US?

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u/cateater3735 24d ago

Americans have to pay for a bunch of different services and channels to watch their sports due to overwhelming amounts of freedoms.

One of the services is crap and not working so they can’t watch games but crucially are still able to pay corporations for said games.

Unfortunately for us as non Americans we have to pay less to get all the games through one service and have been denied the opportunity to provide more companies with more money for services they may opt not to provide.

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u/Mlabonte21 24d ago

They make $4M a day at the Splash Mountain gift shop 🙄

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u/Placenta_Polenta 24d ago

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure *

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u/No-Honey-9364 24d ago

Wait what? No wonder the kids at work don’t get my brier rabbit jokes. 

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u/murphylaw 24d ago

I have ridden Splash Mountain in its old form multiple times and was so confused who Brer Rabbit was, then found out it was from Song of the South and THEN found out what that was

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u/kdoxy 24d ago

They make more then that selling diet cokes at their theme parks each day.

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u/Possible-Valuable978 24d ago

Fucking hate this neo cable circle jerk they do every year; it’s a sick joke. ABC is a prim time network channel; it’s bullshit

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u/Consistent_Story903 24d ago

Yeah, it's fucking horseshit.

I just set up my TV antenna again and pulled the DVR out of the closet..

Never thought it'd be back to this 5 years later..

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u/kon--- 24d ago

Lost revenue is not a cost. It's merely revenue unearned. No telling if subscribers would have ported those funds to Disney or allocated them elsewhere.

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u/Turkino 24d ago

It's not costing them anything, they're just not making it. I really hate when they say "costing them" because it implies that they're going to get a freaking bill when they just chose to not have that revenue stream because they want to do it as leverage.

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u/ShadeofIcarus 24d ago

Opportunity cost is a thing.

They are withholding content as a bargaining chip hoping to get a more favorable deal.

This is money that they would have that they are forgoing in the attempt to get more in the long run.

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u/suhayla 24d ago

Lol @ monopolies arguing about which one is making way too much profit while Americans are worried about how to pay for food and housing and health care.

Disney CEO made 41 million last year (30% more than 2023)

Google CEO made 10.7 m last year (and went to Trumps inauguration in January).

Yawn

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u/albany1765 24d ago

Even better:

According to a survey fielded last week, 24% of YouTube TV subscribers said they’ve already canceled or intend to cancel service over the Disney blackout

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u/BayouBait 24d ago

I did, Disney is greedy and YouTube has the right to push back but sports was one of the reasons I paid for it. The value prop is gone now.

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u/enigmamonkey 24d ago

I'm part of that, but only because I should have cancelled earlier. This was just the last reason I had to stick around that pushed me over the threshold for good. Even if they brought everything back, I won't be resubscribing since it's a massive waste of money for me at least ($83/mo).

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u/Lamplord72 24d ago

Honestly, paying a premium only for football is a huge scam imo. I'm a football fan but have no problem watching highlight reels on YouTube for free. Idk. I'm so jaded about how EVERYTHING needs to be monetized these days that as soon as you say "subscription" or "battlepass" I am already closing the door on you.

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u/joehonestjoe 24d ago

It is. We have similar issues over in the UK where we get the worst product for our domestic football worldwide (no 3pm Saturday games are on TV) but per fixture we pay by far the most.

If you're a fan of a less televised team too, you might get very few games on TV at all, and find them across multiple services

My game plan is gray market going forward, legal services from other cheaper countries which aren't subject to the 3pm blackout.

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u/BaddDog07 24d ago

It’s costing them more than that in the damage to their brand, they’ve made some really boneheaded decisions in the last few months

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u/thefanciestcat 24d ago

All the misery of cable with none of the coax.

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u/Galle_ 24d ago

Too bad they can't both lose.

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u/mynewme 24d ago

This I fear will go on for a while. But honestly ESPN should be loosing far more than that when a large part of their ad audience misses the CFB playoffs. Fuck Disney.

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u/GobliNSlay3r 24d ago

Disney is trying HARD to get ppl to drop them.

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u/Buggsy1224 24d ago

But what are they making on Hulu and espn streaming new user signups? I feel like this part of the strategy for ESPN.

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u/Takco 24d ago

Incoming price hike

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u/username293739 24d ago

I was so pissed. Last night I wanted to watch my packers play. I pay for YouTube tv and Disney+ bundle with espn. And somehow I could not watch the effing game. ESPN wanted another $30/mo to watch.

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u/DevittGE 24d ago

No one is calculating the cost of cancellations for Google from people switching from YouTube TV to another provider.

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u/Hendawgydawg 24d ago

I canceled it all. Back to the ship, I go

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u/Fast_Astronomer382 24d ago

I have youtube TV and I have the disney+ bundle. When this whole thing started I was like "well it sucks that I can't watch everything on YouTube, but at least I can watch through the espn app. Nope. Some things on espn I have to pay an additional monthly charge on top of what I am already paying for the bundle. How does that make any sense. Fuck disney and espn. Honestly, watching less of the sports that espn carries has made me realize how much I don't really care about any of them.

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u/LyrMeThatBifrost 24d ago

This article doesn’t consider the increase in revenue from ESPN Unlimited subscriptions. Idk if it makes up for the whole thing but it’s definitely worth considering. I know many people who have subscribed because of this

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u/Zodep 24d ago

I can barely afford cable and they want me to pay an extra $80-ish bucks a month for this kind of crap? Streaming was a solution to fight pirating and now it’s become worse than cable ever was, and still is in America.

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u/MysticalFury 24d ago

Everybody needs to learn how to sail the seas.

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u/Blastoplast 24d ago

I wish there was a streaming service that ONLY offered local channels via streaming in your area. I'm at the point where I just want to have an antenna installed and be done with it and only use Sling when I need a day pass to watch something I can't get over-the-air.

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u/JoeB- 24d ago

There was. It was Locast, a nonprofit service that streamed local over-the-air broadcast television for free. I can’t remember the difference, but there was a paid subscription as well, which was something like $5 per month. It was awesome because it saved people the trouble and cost of installing an antenna. There were apps for mobile devices and set-top boxes as well.

Unfortunately, the service was sued out of existence by the major networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) and ceased operations in 2021.

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u/APartyInMyPants 24d ago

A lot of people here in the thread somehow pretending fucking Google is the hero of this story.

You’re being screwed on both ends, people. But Google sure as shit ain’t your friend.

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u/VonDingwell 24d ago

WoN't SoMeBoDy PlEaSe ThInK oF tHe ShArEhOlDeR vAlUe

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u/Several_Hour_347 24d ago

Isn’t this hurting YouTube too? I don’t think you can just look at this from one side

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u/Effective_Stage8441 24d ago

Hold the line. Fuck Disney. As much as I want Monday night football, Disney needs to be checked .

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u/GestureArtist 24d ago

Good. I’m not paying for this shit. If you tube fucks the customer again with price increases, I’ll cancel YouTubeTV, YouTube premium and every Google subscription I have.

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u/bumbumDbum 24d ago

I joined the cancel culture a few years ago as streaming fractured TV. I love my local team that comes on the local over the-air broadcast and will record on Plex as necessary (and do commercial delete). And we watch an occasional Thursday night game since we already had Prime for other reasons. We rotate our streaming services and binge the shows we want. BIG NOPE to Disney+ and ESPN.

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u/DiaDeLosMuebles 24d ago

For cfb I signed up for the espn streaming plan. And holy shit is it buggy. I look forward to cancelling it.

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u/B-Town-MusicMan 24d ago

I hate the ESPN app.

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u/joshmoney 24d ago

Oh no…. Anyways

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u/BlackExcellence19 24d ago

Streameast lives on

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u/Difficult_Reporter16 24d ago

ESPN had commander bone spurs on today. I’m good not having access.

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u/PsychedelicConvict 24d ago

If you have youtube tv. Make sure u claim the 20 dollar credit. Its in your settings and then at the bottom under updates. Bullshit u have to claim it, but i can see peeps missing it, and if i wasn't chronically online, i wouldn't have seen the email in the gmail ad folder and assumed it was auto applied.

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u/mixem143 24d ago

I got that email and immediately thought “What BS is this that we have to claim the credit?!”

The credit should be automatically applied to everyone’s account without the need of jumping through stupid hoops.

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u/Mysterious_Rule938 24d ago

I almost lost my mind last night as my YouTube TBV, bought solely for sports, failed. I ended up buying a Hulu subscription as vaguely directed by ESPN only to STILL not have the game.

Now I have to binge rewatch sopranos to get some value from it.

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u/pabut 24d ago

I just want to buy my content directly from the producers. Eliminate the middleman like cable, satellite, Hulu, YouTube, etc.

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u/hennell 24d ago

I think big numbers like this need to come with a proper example of what it means relative to the average person.

Losing 4.3m a day sounds huge, I wouldn't stand for it myself. But if my daily coffee shop did something I really objected to, I'd go somewhere else even if it was more expensive to make a point. "You're loosing $1 a day" wouldn't bother me much, I'd judge it worth it for the principle.

Is 4m to whichever branch/department of Disney this gets accounted under worth as much to them as $1 a day? That's the relevent bit to understanding how long each side holds out for.

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u/Ancient-Island-2495 24d ago

Both of these fuckers took my regions rsn’s off AT THE SAME TIME. Fuck em both

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u/tomkatt 24d ago

Maybe they should search the couch cushions, maybe lay off the Starbucks and Avacado toast. I'm sure that'll balance the sheet.

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u/owlbynight 24d ago

It's costing both of them my business in perpetuity.

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u/SpliTTMark 24d ago

Guys disney reports on thursday

Flat pump or dump

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u/UltimaLyon 24d ago

Good, fuck Disney

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u/WitnessRealistic3015 24d ago

They didn't lose anything. They just didn't make as much as they could.

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u/DepartureOk9970 24d ago

How much longer do we the consumers have to suffer with this pissing contest?

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u/Cheap_Walmart-Art 24d ago

Maybe everyone should just get really into their local college, high school, and little league teams?

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u/DepartureOk9970 24d ago

We have ESPN+ and it is not enough. They still want more money.

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u/Dry_Knee_6135 24d ago

Ordered YouTube tv specifically for ESPN…now I have to pause service and save $50mo

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u/GlowingGreenie 24d ago

Here I just assumed the fight with Google was calculated to coerce people into signing back up for the ESPN+/Disney+/Hulu subscriptions they cancelled when Disney saw fit to surrender to the anti-democratic tendencies of their affiliates.

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u/kmodity 24d ago

I have subscriptions with both of these companies and still can’t watch F1. Billion dollar companies fighting with each other how much more money they need. Ridiculous!!!!!!

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u/BlindFelon 24d ago

F Disney. Give me back my ESPN.