SEC commissioner praises YouTube TV amidst Disney-DirecTV fight

A carriage dispute between Disney and DirecTV led to Disney channels going dark on DTV packages Sunday. That included ESPN networks across the board, but also included the eight ABC local affiliates owned by Disney (on DTV proper, with some other ABC affiliates affected on DirecTV Stream). And with three of those affiliates located in California (in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Fresno), that had an impact on Sunday’s USC-LSU “Vegas Kickoff Classic.” And that led to quite an interesting comment from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey on a post from The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel on this:

This is why I have @YouTubeTV… https://t.co/EnWcMsqrxP

— Greg Sankey (@GregSankey) September 2, 2024

Sankey is somewhat right there in that there don’t appear to be any major current disputes between owners of ABC affiliates (most of which are not Disney) and YouTube TV. However, YTTV has gotten into plenty of carriage disputes itself in the past (as most multichannel video programming distributors have). And that includes briefly pulling the same Disney channels (including the owned-and-operated ABCs) as are in the current DTV dispute in December 2021.

It’s particularly interesting for a leader of a league that provides its programming to networks (in the SEC’s case, now exclusively Disney-owned networks, including ABC) in exchange for a rights fee to cite one particular MVPD above others as a way to receive its programming. (Hey, some MVPDs who currently have antitrust litigation pending against Disney and others might want to consider what was said here.) And it will be interesting to see if anyone saves that tweet and quote-tweets it at him the next time an owner of a group of ABC stations (and there are many different owners of the ABC affiliates in the SEC footprint) gets in a carriage dispute with YTTV.

The other curious thing with this tweet is that it seems to miss at least part of the point of Mandel’s tweet. Mandel seemed to be noting that Disney’s actual leverage in carriage disputes like this is mostly about ESPN (where the current thing at risk is tennis’ US Open) rather than broadcast network ABC. ABC can always be received by those with antennas, and can also be found on most multichannel video providers including DirecTV for the affiliates that aren’t Disney owned-and-operated.

That’s all except those aforementioned eight, and most of the SEC-area ones. So that makes more curious still that it was the SEC commissioner that weighed in here on a fight that didn’t have large effects on much of his constituency, rather than anyone from USC or the Big Ten, where there was a bigger impact from this dispute. Pulling ABC O-and-Os is notable in some circumstances, and it was for many trying to watch this game Sunday, but moreso for USC fans than LSU fans based on markets. And it was strange to see Sankey weigh in on this, and do so with an endorsement of a different MVPD.

[Greg Sankey on X/Twitter]