It’s been 11 days since Disney pulled ESPN and ABC from YouTube TV, preventing about 10 million households from watching their favorite college football teams and Monday Night Football. And it’s unclear when, if ever, Disney will allow YouTube TV subscribers to watch football again.
What is clear is that this could have been prevented if Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s Justice Department had more thoroughly reviewed Disney’s recent acquisition of YouTube TV’s rival, Fubo.
The dispute between Disney and YouTube TV’s parent company, Google, is really about the continuing decline in households that still subscribe to traditional cable/satellite television packages and what the growing number of households that have cut the cord are using as a substitute. It has become increasingly clear to entertainment property holders, such as Disney, and content platforms, such as YouTube TV, that while consumers want their nonsports channels unbundled, they still want the option of buying a bundled sports package.
Enter Fubo, which was created in 2015 to, in the words of co-founder David Gandler, “give fans the games they want, without the channels they don’t.” Fubo put together a package of channels that included all the major sports, but companies such as Disney refused to sell Fubo its sports channels unless it also bought other nonsports channels. Thus, the skinniest Fubo plan still included over 100 nonsports channels.
However, Disney recognized the wisdom of Fubo’s plan. In February 2024, it announced a joint venture with Fox and Warner Bros. to create Venu Sports, a low-cost sports bundle streaming service that would combine the sports rights of those companies (including ESPN, Fox Sports, and TNT) into a streaming service that would compete directly with Fubo.
Fubo then sued in federal court, alleging that Disney’s requirement that it purchase nonsports channels alongside sports networks constituted an illegal form of bundling under antitrust law. Fubo further said the combined Disney/Fox/Warner entity would control roughly 75% of all sports rights, giving it monopoly power to raise prices on consumers.
Disney responded by just buying Fubo, ending the lawsuit.
But the resulting merger required approval from the DOJ’s antitrust division. And that approval came through on Oct. 29, 2025. The very next day, Disney pulled football from YouTube TV.
There is no announcement on the DOJ’s website explaining why it approved the Disney-Fubo merger, nor did the DOJ offer any comment for the record when contacted. However, a source familiar with DOJ thinking on the matter said an antitrust review was done on the narrow question of whether Disney’s acquisition of Fubo narrowed competition by eliminating “skinny” sports bundles. The review concluded that since Fubo was never able to offer a “skinny” sports bundle, Disney was not harming competition by buying Fubo.
This was a major mistake by Bondi’s DOJ. The antitrust division should have done a much wider review of the possible competitive harms presented by the merger, including the possibility that Disney would leverage its near monopoly in college football to raise costs for streaming platforms, such as YouTube TV, thus forcing consumers into Disney-owned alternatives like Hulu and Fubo. Because that is exactly what happened just one day after Disney’s Fubo merger was approved: Disney attempted to jack up prices for its sports content on YouTube TV while telling consumers they could get their favorite sports content on Disney-owned competitors. This is textbook monopoly behavior.
Fortunately, antitrust law allows the DOJ to reexamine a merger if new information comes to light. Here, Disney has immediately proven it intends to combine its market power in college football with its new streaming platforms to raise prices on football fans everywhere.
REINSTITUTIONALIZING THE HOMELESS
President Donald Trump has a huge opportunity to save the college football season. He can announce that the DOJ is reopening its review of Disney’s Fubo acquisition and that if Disney does not want to be ordered to divest of Fubo, it must immediately allow YouTube TV to begin carrying college football again.
Bondi’s DOJ fumbled the ball, but Trump can still save the game. By reopening the Disney-Fubo merger review and forcing Disney to restore football access on YouTube TV, his administration can show fans and monopolists alike that no company is too powerful to sideline America’s favorite game.