Kirk Herbstreit shares satisfaction for YouTube TV amid ESPN, DirecTV carriage dispute
Kirk Herbstreit got in on the DirecTV pile on with his praise of YouTube TV to watch college football this weekend.
DirecTV customers lost Disney and ESPN going into Week 1 of the season amid a carriage dispute. Safe to say, there were a lot of upset fans during Labor Day weekend.
But Herbstreit, like potentially many others, praised YouTube TV after being able to watch the games throughout each day.
“Knew YouTube TV would pay off,” Herbstreit wrote on Twitter. “Good call to my 4 boys. #CloseCall #Onward.”
ESPN released a statement on the carriage dispute on Sunday evening.
“DirecTV chose to deny millions of subscribers access to our content just as we head into the final week of the US Open and gear up for college football and the opening of the NFL season,” the statement read.
“While we’re open to offering DirecTV flexibility and terms which we’ve extended to other distributors, we will not enter into an agreement that undervalues our portfolio of television channels and programs.
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“We invest significantly to deliver the No. 1 brands in entertainment, news and sports because that’s what our viewers expect and deserve. We urge DirecTV to do what’s in the best interest of their customers and finalize a deal that would immediately restore our programming.”
The news came on the heels of an awesome opening weekend for ABC and ESPN.
While DirecTV is in a carriage dispute with Disney and ESPN, ABC just posted a phenomenal opening weekend in terms of viewership.
ESPN reported that the three games the network broadcast on ABC averaged 7.6 million viewers, the second-most ever for an opening week.
It was led by a primetime game between Notre Dame and Texas A&M that kicked off at 7:30 p.m. ET. That game saw an average of 8.2 million people tune in and peaked at 9.3 million viewers. That made it the most-watched Saturday night game of the past two years and it was also the most-streamed regular season college football game ever.
Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this report