DIRECTV is currently in a dispute with Disney, which includes the ESPN family of networks. This meant that as of Monday evening, all college football games featuring SEC teams were blacked out. Unfortunately for DirecTV, Monday evening the SEC’s LSU Tigers took on the USC Trojans on ABC. To make matters worse, the game was a close contest all the way through with the Trojans winning 20-17.
When games are close, things tend to pick up on social media more-so than they would otherwise. And heading into week two of the college football season on Saturday, DirecTV could have even more problems on their hands if they do not fix things quickly.
As with many disputes, each party seems to be blaming the other. At the end of the day for DirecTV however, fans will not care and will be quick to switch services if they are not able to watch what they would like. Therefore, if DirecTV were smart, they should bend over backwards to meet Disney’s demands, ensuring whatever remaining customer base they have remains.
Even with that being said, the fallout from this past Monday evening has already begun In full force. I took to X (Formerly known as Twitter) on the situation and received some intriguing responses from DirecTV users. To put it politely, fans are not happy at DirecTV right now.
What are college football fans saying about DirecTV?
No loss of service during storms
Yes! I switched 2 years ago. I do however miss the easier DVR situation with DTV. Other than that, pretty identical at half the cost. And I don’t lose signal during the 435 annual Florida thunderstorms.
— Finsfan 🐬 (@Fins64) September 2, 2024
A point here is made about not losing service in the state of Florida during thunderstorms. This brings up a good point as thunderstorms are prominent- especially in the southeast where all 16 SEC schools reside. As a satellite television provider, DirecTV is notorious for its signal going out in storms. This is not a good recipe for them going up against a fan base that geographically is one of the most susceptible to this based on regionality.
This is not the first time
That’s what we did! Losing CBS last year during football season almost did it but this pushed the last straw. So happy with @YouTubeTV so far
— David Scoggins (@DavidMScoggins) September 2, 2024
One fan points out that last year DirecTV had a brief dispute with CBS, which led to blackout issues during the season. As this was strike two, this fan was done and made the switch the streaming.
Thoughts on blacking out week one of the college football season
@DIRECTV cancelled and switched to YouTube, you idiots really thought letting week1 college football blacked out would go over well🤔
— growsesh (@growsesh) September 2, 2024
Well, this sums up what I stated. This fan is very blunt on their thoughts that DirecTV should have thought this through before deciding to blackout games in week one.
There are no excuses
Customer Service lady said I was the first call that she had about it. I called right after it happened and canceled. Been with them for 10 yrs. There’s no excuse.
— Mike Balcer (@bmanusc) September 1, 2024
This fan shares that he has been with DirecTV for a decade. Last week’s blackout even caused them to switch. The level of loyalty someone has to stay with a service for 10 years is incredible. On the other side, it also shows how much it matters to folks to be able to watch the games and channels they want. And SEC football is far from an exception.
The beginning of the end for cable
This is the beginning of the end for cable networks. We knew that this was coming eventually. #CutTheCord 🔌
— RealASharpe (@RealBirdman85) September 2, 2024
I felt like this was a good way to sum up the article. How could it not be the beginning of the end for cable tv? The only two popular ones that remain are DirecTV and Dish Network. “Cutting the cord” as this fan puts it is becoming more and more common. And they are not wrong.