College Football Fans Rejoice! ESPN Returns to DirecTV Customers

Our long national nightmare is over. A high-stakes fight between the suits at Disney and DirecTV forced college football fans to suffer. After spending two weeks on the sideline, ESPN is returning to television sets across the country just in time for week three.

Disney and DirecTV have agreed to a deal ending the ongoing dispute that left nearly 11 million customers without access to college football since Sept. 1. They were on the verge of missing out on 20 more games if the dispute continued for another Saturday, including tonight’s Kentucky football game.

Every Disney network — including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, SEC Network, ACC Network, and ABC — has been immediately restored to DirecTV and Uverse customers.

The crux of every one of these disputes is money, but this time there was a new wrinkle. Disney is preparing to launch a direct-to-consumer platform for ESPN. (They could just pitch every network in with ESPN+, but that would make too much sense for this rational consumer.) As part of this new deal, this new ESPN service will be available for free to all DirecTV customers.

“Through this first-of-its-kind collaboration, DIRECTV and Disney are giving customers the ability to tailor their video experience through more flexible options,” the two companies said in a joint statement. “DIRECTV and Disney have a long-standing history of connecting consumers to the best entertainment, and this agreement furthers that commitment by recognizing both the tremendous value of Disney’s content and the evolving preferences of DIRECTV’s customers.”

This is the second straight year that Disney executives have fought with a carrier that forced their services offline during football season. Charter-Spectrum Cables customers were the victims in that dispute. It’s almost like the suits don’t care about the common man.

Kentucky vs. No. 1 Georgia: How to Watch

• Kickoff: 7:30 p.m. ET
• TV: ABC (Sean McDonough, Greg McElroy, Molly McGrath)
• Watch college football games live – try Fubo for free! Click HERE NOW.
• Local Radio: UK Sports Network (Tom Leach, Jeff Piecoro, Dick Gabriel)
• AM: 840 WHAS, 630 WLAP
• FM: 98.1 WBUL
• Online: iHeart Radio
• Sirius XM: 82
• Live Stats: UKAthletics.com

You can also keep up with the game and chat with other fans on our game thread on KSBoard, with Nick Roush, Adam Luckett, and Drew Franklin providing updates from Kroger Field and the rest of us from home.