YouTube calls out Disney after leaking memo sent to ESPN employees

The biggest saga out there right now may be the feud between YouTube TV and Disney. As football fans are well aware of at this point, no ESPN channels are popping up on the streaming service. This has affected both college football and the NFL’s Monday Night Football.

Another layer was added on Friday afternoon when Disney sent a memo to its employees, only to have it leaked. Moments later, YouTube TV came out with its own response. Unsurprisingly, they called out Disney for “old tactics” in order to sway the deal in their favor.

“Once again, Disney is resorting to their old tactics like leaking documents to the press, negotiating in public through their paid talent and misrepresenting the facts including from the deals they’ve offered and taking credit for our product proposals,” YouTube said via Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. “Our team stands ready to make a fair agreement in line with their deals with other distributors and we encourage Disney to come to the table and do what’s best for our mutual customers.”

It appears as if a deal is not going to be in place anytime soon. This means major games in Week 11 of the college football season will not be available for YouTube TV subscribers. Or even something like ESPN College GameDay, which is set to be live from Lubbock, TX.

In the meantime, Pat McAfee revealed Friday that College GameDay will be live-streamed in full on his X (formerly Twitter) account Saturday morning. The decision offers a welcomed reprieve for college football fans.

Disney sends out memo to employees over YouTube TV situation

Just before YouTube TV released a statement, the memo from Disney was unveiled. They provided an update on the situation from their end, explaining how the process worked. Disney Entertainment Co-Chairs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro were the trio to transcribe the message.

“Team,

“We promised to keep you updated on our negotiations with Google’s YouTube TV following their decision last week to pull our channels from their service, and we are writing today with the latest. We realize this has been a challenging week, with everyone asking the same question as millions of YouTube TV subscribers during the busiest time of the year in sports: When will ESPN and ABC be back on the service? We wish we could give you that answer today, but unfortunately, we are headed into another sports-packed weekend without a deal in place.

“We know you’ve seen a swirl of information about the impasse, so we wanted to share some of the facts:

“We began these negotiations by offering YouTube TV a deal that would cost less overall than the terms of our recently expired license. That’s real savings that YouTube TV could pass along to its customers.
We’ve offered innovative, bespoke programming packages—tailored to sports fans, entertainment fans, kids and families—that would provide tremendous flexibility for YouTube TV and greater choice and value for its customers.

We’ve offered fair terms that are in-line with the more than 500 other distributors that have renewed their agreements since last summer, including the top distributors, who are far larger than YouTube TV. Despite all this, YouTube TV continues to insist on receiving preferential terms that are below market and has made few concessions.

“Rather than compete on a level playing field, Google’s YouTube TV has approached these negotiations as if it were the only player in the game. It goes without saying that the reason so many consumers value our programming above others is because we invest in the best talent, creators and content in the world, and we cannot allow anyone to undercut our ability to do so.

“We know how difficult this situation is for the YouTube TV customers we serve, and for all of you who provide the sports programming, entertainment, news and live events that our fans know and love. Thank you for the incredible work you do each and every day and for staying focused on maintaining such a high bar throughout this difficult situation.

“We will continue to work diligently to find common ground with YouTube TV and will keep you informed as we have more news to share.

“With Gratitude,
Alan, Dana & Jimmy”

On3’s Steve Samra contributed to this report