Join us Sept. 14-16 in Miami to connect with top publishing leaders
ESPN is off the air on YouTube.
Earlier this week, YouTube announced it will be rolling out a premium plan costing $9.99 per month for exclusive content without any ads. As part of the deal, content creators, like ESPN, were essentially given no alternative other than to participate with YouTube Red, as it is called, or have their content rendered unviewable. The strong-arming ignited a firestorm within the content creator community since many of them felt being bullied into the revenue split.
While many companies complied, ESPN has declined.
Now, many of ESPN’s 13 YouTube channels, which have 3 million subscribers among them, have been mostly stripped of videos. On three of the network’s show pages (SportsNation, First Take and His & Hers) there’s a message displayed reading “This channel has no content.” Grantland’s page also has the same message.
On ESPN’s YouTube channel, which has 1.6 million subscribers alone, videos that are three years and older are the only posts left. That doesn’t mean ESPN’s videos are completely wiped off the Internet: the network is still posting them in its own video player.
ESPN told Digiday that it’s not commenting “at this time.”
Mashable reports the issue revolves around rights since ESPN’s posts a lot of sporting content that “tend to involve many third-party rights that are affected if that work is suddenly not being distributed for free.”
Update 2:50 p.m. ET | ESPN provided this additional comment to Digiday: “ESPN is not currently part of the Red service. Content previously available on the free YouTube service will be available across ESPN digital properties.”
Images via Facebook.
More in Media
As AI automates everything, The Atlantic is building games by hand
The Atlantic is bucking the AI automation trend with a new trivia game handcrafted by “Jeopardy!” champion and senior editor Drew Goins.
USA Fencing relies on creators to attract new fans ahead of the 2028 Olympics
Creators can bring new fans to niche sports in droves, and USA Fencing wants to tap into their cultural power.
An anatomy of the creator brand trip’s midlife crisis
The brand trip as we know it may be dead, but a newer, more genuine and engaging format is rising from its ashes.