The Monday Night Football clash between the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals turned out to be more chaotic than anyone expected. Surprisingly, that didn’t have much to do with the final 27-17 loss to the Cowboys. Through the evening, fans everywhere were scrambling to watch the game on YouTube TV, only to find out they couldn’t.

As info surfaced, the corporate reasons came to light. Disney, which owns ESPN, is in a standoff with YouTube TV, and their contract dispute basically turned Monday Night Football into a streaming nightmare. Fast forward to now, and Pat McAfee sounded off on the ongoing dispute and urged the streaming platforms to stop the corporate tug-of-war and think about the fans.

“If you’re on TV, stop telling people to go to a website to save a multi-billion-dollar deal. Nobody cares what you have to say,” the NFL legend ranted. “There will be nothing that we have to say or any website that will be visited. Let’s put our swords down for the good of sports.”

After his fiery comments, McAfee doubled down, stressing that both sides need to work together instead of fighting for leverage.

“We need each other, especially with where sports are right now. We’re in the middle of it, so let’s get it done. Stop asking me to go to a website. I don’t want to do that … all you’re doing is pissing everybody off even more. Let’s just not do that.”

This isn’t the first time sports fans have been caught in corporate crossfire. A similar blackout hit in late 2024 when The Walt Disney Company’s channels, including ESPN and ABC, were pulled from YouTube TV during a carriage-fee dispute, leaving viewers unable to watch games across leagues.

On October 30, things went south between Disney and YouTube TV. Disney’s entire lineup home to Monday Night Football, was yanked off the platform after the two sides failed to agree on a new deal. This is a look at the Disney channels, which were pulled from YouTube TV (per USA Today):

• ABC
• ABC News Live
• ACC Network
• Disney Channel
• Disney Junior
• Disney XD
• ESPN
• ESPNews
• ESPN2
• ESPNU
• Freeform
• FX
• FXM
• FXX
• Localish
• Nat Geo
• Nat Geo Wild
• SEC Network
• Spanish-language plan: ESPN Deportes, Baby TV Español, Nat Geo Mundo

Disney released a statement on October 30, after their decision to pull the MNF content. along with the others.

“Despite our best efforts, we could not reach a fair deal, and starting today, Disney programming will not be available on YouTube TV,”

In short, no contract meant no football, and fans were the ones left paying the price. This is exactly why Pat McAfee urged both sides to put down the swords and think about the fans. For now, though, it looks like this standoff isn’t resolving. Both sides seem dug in, and fans might be stuck waiting a while before things finally get sorted out.

Monday night football on YouTube TVremains uncertain

After the Cowboys-Cardinals matchup, one big question naturally popped up: Can you still watch MNF on ESPN through YouTube TV? For now, the answer’s pretty murky. The reason for this is because Disney and YouTube TV still haven’t ironed out their contract issues, leaving fans hanging in the meantime.

On top of that, YouTube pushed back hard, saying Disney came to the table.

They mentioned, “Costly economic terms that would raise prices on YouTube TV customers and give our customers fewer choices.”

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Meanwhile, Disney fired back, accusing Google (YouTube TV’s parent).

They stated, “(Google) Is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor.”

In short, the dispute between the TV giants isn’t resolved, leaving Monday Night Football on YouTube TV uncertain. However, other streaming options like Fubo, Sling TV, and ESPN’s own platform, ESPN Unlimited, will still broadcast the game.