It seems that Disney is pulling the same shenanigans they pulled with Spectrum Cable last year. They’re pulling ESPN and ABC channels until DirecTV meets their demands. They view cable and satellite TV as a dying breed, so they’re going to get as much money out of them as possible before they go away. 
 

The second article talks about ESPN’s survival plan for the future. They’re saying they need to be relevant for the next generation of sports fans. Bottom line is we’re going to see a lot more of this from these sports media sites as their contracts with the cable companies expire.

 

ESPN and Disney go dark for millions of DirecTV customers amid contract dispute

WWW.CBSNEWS.COM

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Walt Disney Co. pulled ESPN, its Disney network and ABC stations from DirecTV's service, a move that came on a busy sports night.

 

Just a moment...

WWW.AXIOS.COM

 

 

 

FOX and Disney/ESPN with Warner Brothers formed the streaming service, VENU, for a reason. 

 

VENU will probably be the primary broadcast site for Super Conference games, but not without a fight. I expect 'left behind teams' to not go quietly but to go screaming to the Justice Department and file a suit or two claiming VENU violates anti-trust laws. 

 

Instead of VENU, I'd like to see a Super Conference channel, ala the NFL Network to take the game inventory away from 3rd party media entities that could care less about the viewing public with a percentage of the SC Network revenue being shared with lower division teams.