Disney, Comcast ‘quietly’ renew carriage agreement, Xfinity subs still without ESPN Unlimited

As Disney and Google enter a public carriage battle over distribution on YouTube TV, it appears Disney avoided a dispute with another major pay TV provider.

According to a recent report by John Ourand of Puck, Disney and Comcast “quietly” renewed a distribution agreement earlier this month, keeping Disney-owned channels, including the ESPN family of networks, on Comcast’s Xfinity cable systems without disruption. However, there’s at least one wrinkle to the new agreement that is still being sorted out.

Despite the new agreement, Xfinity customers still do not have access to authenticate into the highest tier of ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer app, ESPN Unlimited. Awful Announcing has learned that the delay is due to work being done on the product’s tech side to accommodate Xfinity subscribers, according to a source familiar with the matter. The source did not provide any timeline for the completion of the tech work.

Prior to the app’s launch in September, ESPN’s stated goal was to provide seamless authentication into ESPN Unlimited for any traditional bundle subscribers. The idea was that ESPN would be agnostic to whichever way one purchased the network’s content. Buy it through a pay TV bundle? Great, here’s authentication access for the app. Buy it through ESPN directly? That’s great too.

ESPN Unlimited, which runs consumers about $30 per month when purchased directly from the network, includes access to all of ESPN’s linear networks, all ESPN+ exclusive content, and, crucially, new content like WWE Premium Live Events that are exclusive to ESPN Unlimited.

However, major carriers like Xfinity and YouTube TV, which combine account for about 20 million subscribers, are still unable to offer their customers full access to ESPN’s app. The delay being tech-related would seem to indicate that ESPN is preparing for an influx of new users from both Xfinity and YouTube TV, assuming Disney and Google are able to reach a similar distribution deal in the coming days.

Last month, an ESPN executive assured gathered media that the “vast majority” of pay TV subscribers would have access to ESPN Unlimited by year’s end. ESPN hasn’t exactly inspired confidence on that front so far, with Xfinity and YouTube TV still on the outside looking in.

It is encouraging, however, that Disney and Comcast were able to reach an agreement that included ESPN Unlimited access for its subscribers. So far, ESPN has been correct in its assertion that any new distribution deals the company strikes will include authentication into the app’s Unlimited tier. The next test, of course, will be with Google’s YouTube TV.