No One Is Winning the YouTube TV Dispute With ESPN. It’s Time for Both Sides To Call It Off.

Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! Be kind to your water bottles this week, lest they end up hitting an innocent bystander.

Ten million people haven’t had access to ESPN and the rest of Disney’s channels for almost two weeks, and it’s starting to get on my their nerves. We’ll get into some business details before moving onto the MLB’s betting scandal and closing with some sports-related opportunities for Veterans Day.

• Sources say the International Olympic Committee will ban transgender women from all women’s events at the Olympics, but a spokesperson denied that there had been a final decision yet.
• Is President Donald Trump a Detroit sports fan? First he went to see the Tigers play the Yankees in New York on 9/11, then he went to the Commanders-Lions game in recognition of Veterans Day. Maybe he’ll go see the Red Wings play the Capitals on December 20 because of Christmas or something. Anyway, click here if you want to watch all 8.5 minutes of him in the FOX booth at the football game. Highlights include Trump trying to do play-by-play by just saying “Whoa!”
• Trump also wants the Commanders to name their new stadium after him—which is obviously a bad idea from a financial perspective, given the hundreds of millions of dollars the team could get from selling the naming rights. But it would be amusing to see how many fans would boycott the stadium or ditch the Commanders if they did name it after Trump. Cheaper tickets for me!
• Brian Daboll was fired by the Giants, which means it’ll be a while until I can again share the fun fact that we both went to the same amazing D-III university.
• Sens. Mike Lee (R–Utah) and Cory Booker (D–N.J.) want to end MLB’s antitrust exemption.
• ESPN Bet is (sort of) coming to an end, as ESPN’s partnership with Penn Entertainment produced lackluster returns. ESPN will still use the ESPN Bet branding with DraftKings, so it’s not like it’s exiting the betting world—but it shows bettors seem to like the existing apps and won’t get swayed by TV personalities hawking alternatives.
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis does not seem to know how media markets for NFL broadcasts work (or he just thinks it’s politically wise to bash sports broadcasters).
• Elsewhere in Reason: We need an intern! If you or someone you know would be a great fit for our highly paid internship this spring, here’s our application page.
• Yours truly went on the Reason Roundtable podcast’s Table for Two to talk about the NBA betting scandal (before the latest MLB betting scandal news):

Even as a longtime YouTube TV subscriber, the ongoing carriage dispute with Disney and ESPN didn’t hit home for me until day 9 of the blackout. I figured out this weekend that, even as a subscriber to ESPN’s streaming content (formerly known as ESPN+), I would not be able to watch Formula 1 in the middle of its most exciting title fight in four years. This was unacceptable, so I gave in and paid $30 to subscribe to ESPN Unlimited for a month. (This weekend’s F1 action was well worth it.)

YouTube TV has about 10 million subscribers, and it seems safe to assume millions of them are unhappy about losing access to ESPN or other Disney channels for the last 12 days. Some of them probably blame YouTube TV, some blame Disney, and some probably don’t care and just want it to end. (An Athletic poll of 8,000 sports fans found that 64 percent blamed ESPN/Disney, and that the vast majority of people who had seen messaging from ESPN or YouTube TV about the dispute found the arguments not persuasive.)

Those upset at YouTube TV would probably note their price increases: It launched in 2017 at $35 a month but now charges $83 a month. But YouTube TV can’t just cut out the fluff of lesser-watched channels (why do I get HSN, Hallmark Mystery, and some channel that apparently just shows Portlandia on a loop?) because those channels are cheap for it to offer. I need the big guns like everyone else: live sports and live news (I’m a journalist, after all). These are the channels charging big carriage fees.

ESPN is a punching bag, too, often getting criticized for its content that’s not live sports. Their costs are also going up and it’s facing new competition from the likes of Amazon, Apple, and Netflix in the bidding wars for live sports. (Interestingly, “Despite generating significantly less revenue than Disney’s entertainment division (streaming, TV, movies, etc.), ESPN brings in more annual profit (around $3 billion vs. $2.5 billion),” as Joe Pompliano notes in his excellent breakdown.)

What’s most frustrating, though, is that this dispute ended up in a blackout at all. This was a trainwreck waiting to happen, especially given YouTubeTV’s history of carriage disputes. The two sides had a similar dispute in 2021 as well, but like most carriage disputes you hear about it was resolved in a day.

Eventually they’ll come to an agreement and everything will probably go back to normal for consumers as if it never happened. At this point, the facts and circumstances aren’t changing. No wild swing in support or leverage is coming to either side. Waiting isn’t doing anything but frustrating fans and losing revenue for both sides (supposedly $5 million a day for ESPN). Negotiators need to get to a table and grind out a compromise.

As sports fans, we’re always looking for a rooting interest. Rooting for YouTube TV seems wise here—after all, they’re the ones who set the price for subscribers. The less they have to pay for ESPN, the less they can charge subscribers. But that’s not without consequences—less ESPN revenue means less for them to spend on TV rights, broadcast quality, and talent. I, for one, would be OK paying a little less for YouTube TV if it meant Stephen A. Smith getting a little less money at the end of his six-year, $120 million contract.

If you heard about the Jontay Porter and Terry Rozier betting scandals in the NBA and thought “Didn’t they know they were going to get caught?”, you’d be on the right track. Maybe if they’d been caught sooner, MLB pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz would have thought better of their own harebrained betting scheme.

Clase and Ortiz stand accused by the Justice Department of working with co-conspirators to win $450,000 dating back to May 2023. Clase and Ortiz got only a small part of those winnings (which, similar to Rozier’s example, is shocking to me given their pro athlete salaries).

Instead of summarizing the scheme in my own words, here’s the indictment: “The defendants agreed in advance with their co-conspirators to throw specific types and speeds of pitches, and their co-conspirators used that inside information to place wagers on those pitches. In some instances, the defendants received bribes and kickback payments—funneled through third parties—in exchange for rigging pitches. Through this scheme, the defendants defrauded betting platforms, deprived Major League Baseball and the Cleveland Guardians of their honest services, illegally enriched themselves and their co-conspirators, misled the public, and betrayed America’s pastime.”

Again, as with the Rozier bets, these were bets placed with legalized sports books—and that’s how the (alleged) co-conspirators were caught.

Some of this involved the players using their phones during games, which is already against the rules. Look for MLB to crack down harder on that. They’re already cracking down on pitch bets. DraftKings and FanDuel, at the league’s request, are now limiting those bets to $200 and not allowing them in parlays. We’ll see if that’s where the line is drawn (in thick, permanent marker) or if the betting rollback gets pushed even further.

Hopefully, any other athletes that would be tempted by their own betting scheme will see what’s happening to Clase, Ortiz, Porter, and Rozier and think better of it. If convicted, Clase and Ortiz face up to 65 years in prison. “That’s like the dumbest way to cheat,” expert gambler Bob Voulgaris told Pablo Torre Finds Out (and the NBA). “Player props are very easy to identify and monitor….Nobody with a brain thinks this is a successful way to point shave and not get caught.”

Happy Veterans Day, and thank you for your service if you’ve ever been in the military, or a family member of someone who has. I just wanted to point out a few sports-related ways to honor veterans, if you’re so inclined.

Got extra tickets to the game? You can donate them to Vet Tix, a foundation that’s helped give away over 33 million tickets to active service members, veterans, and their families.

Team Red, White & Blue offers health and wellness programs to veterans (I’ve seen their logo often at running events in the D.C. area), and Move United Warfighters offers adaptive sports programming to veterans who have a permanent disability. VETSports offers more team/league-style athletic programs.

Golfers could also make their way to Michigan to play at American Dunes (a course redesigned by Jack Nicklaus), where proceeds go to the Folds of Honor foundation, which gives scholarships to family members of service members or first responders who died or are disabled. Or, if it’s closer to you, the Medal of Honor Golf Course in Virginia at Marine Corps Base Quantico is open to the public. Tee It Up for the Troops also has events across the country to raise money for various veterans care organizations.

Multiple people suggested this, so here you go. Ottawa went on to win in extra time, thanks to another goal from David Rodríguez. (You can always feel free to suggest replays, topics, and more to me at freeagent@reason.com.) 

GOAL ????

DAVID RODRIGUEZ ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!!

BICYCLE KICK GOAL IN THE 2025 CANADIAN PREMIER LEAGUE FINAL TO LEVEL THINGS UP FOR @atletiOttawa ????????????

???? Watch the #CanPL final LIVE on OneSoccer, TSN & FuboTV pic.twitter.com/4RhNsBI4zH

— Canadian Premier League (@CPLsoccer) November 9, 2025

That’s all for this week. Enjoy watching the real game of the week, Hungary against Ireland in a World Cup qualifier (Sunday, 9 a.m. on FOX).