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Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington are entering their debut seasons in the Big 10. After leaving the PAC 12 over media rights disputes, the teams landed in one of college football’s two most powerful leagues.
Unfortunately, television issues persist even with that new affiliation. Comcast/Xfinity has found a way to infuriate fans of the Big 10’s West Coast members!
The company is reportedly blacking out live contests on the Big 10 Network due to a “carriage dispute.” The issue was discovered by Washington fans this week as they looked to catch a midweek soccer match.
They were instead met with a message from Comcast.
Just in time for football season, it looks like FOX/Big Ten Network is going to have a carriage battle with Comcast. pic.twitter.com/xNNClIrkmp
— Alex Bolton (@UWBolt) August 27, 2024
While the note was regarding that Huskies soccer game, the blackouts involve each of the four new West Coast members.
Apparently Comcast is blacking out the west coast games on B1G. This was shown during an earlier UW Soccer match. Absolutely livid if this is what we are met with on Saturday. @Xfinity @comcast what are you doing? pic.twitter.com/rz85efb0g9
— Chris (@wasmadeinthe80s) August 27, 2024
Fans fear they’ll see a similar outcome when trying to tune into Saturday’s college football season openers.
More from The Oregonian:
Comcast/Xfinity TV customers could miss out on the Oregon Ducks’ and Washington Huskies’ season-opening football games on Saturday.
Fans of the four West Coast schools added to the Big Ten — Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA — are reporting blackouts of their schools’ live sporting events on the Big Ten Network through Comcast/Xfinity…
Big Ten Network is owned in part by Fox, but a blackout wouldn’t likely impact Big Ten football games airing on Fox or FS1 this weekend. So far, Comcast/Xfinity customers have only reported blackouts of live events airing on BTN.
PAC 12 personality John Canzano reached out to Comcast prior to this debacle, with the company telling him that paying a simple upcharge would resolve any viewing issues for new fans, giving them full access to the Big 10 Network.
They apparently withheld some information!
The Big Ten Network is offered on our More Sports and Entertainment tier and can be added to our Xfinity Popular plan for $10 a month. Not only does the Big Ten Network cover college football for Oregon and Washington, but it also includes NFL Network, FanDuel TV, ESPN News, CBS Sports Network, NBA TV, NFL RedZone, NHL Network, MLB Network, PAC-12 Mountain, CMT, TCM, and FM. The Xfinity Popular Package is $60 a month.
-Comcast executive’s response to Canzano.
He expanded on the shady dealings by writing, “Comcast/Xfinity told a lot of people that if they invested an extra $10 in the upgraded sports tier, they’d be able to access the Big Ten Network.
“Technically, they can. But this feels dirty, doesn’t it? That’s not the truth of what’s happening here. Right now, customers can access the shoulder programming, but not live sports games at Oregon, Washington, USC, and UCLA.”
The upgrade isn’t much good if it doesn’t allow you to see the game when it’s being played!
Those teams bailed on the PAC 12 largely due to television disputes. They’re now experiencing them in their new league, too.
“The Big 10 Network is proud to present an expanded slate of live sporting events featuring the newest members of the B1G Conference, however most Comcast subscribers will not see these games. As the one distribution partner that declined to expand along with us, Comcast/Xfinity viewers in many areas will not have access to live broadcasts of the highly anticipated inaugural B1G season games for Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington.”
-Big 10 Network spokesperson
It’s worth noting that only games airing on the Big 10 Network are seeing the blackouts. Those scheduled on Fox or FS1 should be fine.
That means USC and UCLA will avoid the issue in Week 1 as they play on CBS and ABC, respectively. Oregon and Washington won’t have that luxury!
We’ll see if the fan outrage is enough to have the issues resolved by kickoff on Saturday. If not, there will be a lot of unhappy Comcast subscribers!