Millions may not be able to watch 49ers, college football over dispute

FILE: A Fox Sports camera operator works during the first half between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs at Levis Stadium on Oct. 20, 2024, in Santa Clara, Calif. Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images

Bay Area sports fans are among the millions who could miss the opening week of college football, and the San Francisco 49ers’ season opener, because of a broadcasting rights dispute.

YouTube TV and Fox are engaged in a contractual stalemate. Their current deal is set to expire on Wednesday at 2 p.m. Pacific, but the two sides have been unable to negotiate a renewed agreement. Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal first reported the news on Monday, and YouTube put out a statement confirming the situation a little more than 30 minutes later.

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In the statement, YouTube — which is owned by Google, the Mountain View-based tech giant — accused Fox of “asking for payments that are far higher than what partners with comparable content offerings receive.” It also stated plainly that Fox channels won’t be on YouTube TV if they can’t negotiate a new and “fair” deal by the deadline. This would be particularly problematic for subscribers who are sports fans, as they’d likely miss the first weekend of the college football season — including a marquee Ohio State-Texas matchup — and would be at serious risk of missing the first game of the Niners’ season, which is scheduled to air on Fox.

YouTube TV customers will receive $10 in credit “if Fox content becomes unavailable for an extended period of time,” YouTube said. The statement even suggested subscribing to Fox’s dedicated streaming service to deal with the absence of the channels.

Fox responded by laying the blame on YouTube. Fox Sports first put out a PSA encouraging YouTube TV customers to visit a website that helped disgruntled users contact the streaming service’s support team, share the PSA on X and sign up for an email list about this dispute.

Football season is coming, and YouTube TV customers could be sidelined. This could mean no NFL on FOX, no College Football on FOX, FS1, Big Ten Network and more. — FOX Sports (@FOXSports) August 25, 2025

Fox Corporation then released its own accusatory statement against YouTube TV and Google, and indicated that the PSAs will continue throughout these negotiations.

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“While FOX remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with Google’s YouTube TV, we are disappointed that Google continually exploits its outsized influence by proposing terms that are out of step with the marketplace,” the statement read. “We are alerting FOX viewers who are YouTube TV subscribers that they could lose access to much of their favorite news, sports, entertainment and local station programming unless Google engages in a meaningful way soon.”

This is not the first time that a carrier dispute has threatened to disrupt Week 1 of the 49ers’ season. Last year, DirectTV briefly lost all of its Disney-owned channels, including ESPN, which forced Bay Area subscribers to miss the “Monday Night Football” matchup against the Jets. It’s safe to say this is one annual tradition local NFL fans could do without.

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