The Monday Night Football clash between the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals turned out to be way more chaotic than anyone expected. Well, it’s not because the Cowboys’ defense fell apart again in a 27-17 loss. The real mess, however, was happening off the field. Fans everywhere were scrambling to watch the game on YouTube TV, only to find out they couldn’t.

The reason was painfully simple, and frustratingly corporate. 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. There are, I don’t want to say the exact names, but these people, let’s put our swords down. Let’s put our swords down for the good of sports.

“We need each other. A lot of people saying ‘greedy corporations,’ it’s like, yeah. We need each other, especially with where sports are right now. And we’re in the middle of it, so let’s get it done. And stop asking me to go to a website. I don’t want to do that, so stop … all you’re doing is pissing everybody off even more. So it’s like, let’s just not do that.”

Amidst all the dispute, one thing seems to be clear at the moment: football fans might need to watch the Monday Night Football somewhere other than YouTube TV until things sort out between the streaming giants. We’ll study the issue piece by piece.

On October 30, things went south between Disney and YouTube TV. Disney’s entire lineup, including heavy hitters like ESPN and ABC, both home to Monday Night Football, was yanked off the platform after the two sides failed to agree on a new deal. Take 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

“Despite our best efforts, we have not been able to reach a fair deal, and starting today, Disney programming will not be available on YouTube TV,” Disney’s statement read on October 30, after their decision to pull the MNF content, along with the others.

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 ending anytime soon. Both sides seem dug in, and fans might be stuck waiting a while before things finally get sorted out.

The dispute is far from over despite Pat McAfee’s plea

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’s simple: 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 with “costly economic terms that would raise prices on YouTube TV customers and give our customers fewer choices.” Meanwhile, Disney fired back, accusing that Google (YouTube TV’s parent) “is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor.”

Long story short: the dispute between the TV giants is still far from over. And yes, the MNF on YouTube TV is still up in the air. However, other streaming options like Fubo, Sling TV, and ESPN’s own platform, ESPN Unlimited, will still broadcast the game.