The ongoing Disney–YouTube TV carriage dispute appears to have had a noticeable impact on college football TV ratings across multiple networks this past weekend.

Since Friday, more than 20 Disney channels, including ABC and all ESPN networks, have been unavailable on the No. 4 U.S. pay-TV distributor, which has an estimated 10 million subscribers.

With major college football games not available on YouTube TV on Saturday, ABC had its third-lowest combined audience of the season for its weekly tripleheader. The trio of SEC games, which featured five ranked teams, averaged 5.7 million viewers:

• Georgia-Florida: 7.8 million
• Oklahoma-Tennessee: 4.8 million
• Vanderbilt-Texas: 4.5 million

Oklahoma-Tennessee is ABC’s lowest Saturday primetime audience of the season, and the only game in the network’s 7:30 p.m. ET slot to draw fewer than 6 million viewers. The three-game slate marked just the second time through 10 weeks of college football action that multiple ABC games had fewer than 5 million viewers.

Crunching the Numbers

Georgia-Florida was still the most-watched matchup of the weekend, and up from the roughly 7 million viewers the rivalry game drew on the same weekend last year on ABC. ESPN said it also marked the largest Georgia-Florida audience on record in a full national window.

In second place was the Saturday audience of 7.19 million who watched Penn State–Ohio State on Fox. While that’s down from nearly 10 million viewers for last year’s game on the same weekend, when both teams were ranked in the top five, it is Fox’s second-largest college football audience of the season.

Fox also drew 3.13 million viewers for Kansas State–Texas Tech at 3:30 p.m. ET, marking its largest college football audience of the season in that broadcast window. 

While ESPN made its College GameDay pregame show available to stream for free on its app and other platforms, Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff pregame show had its second-largest audience of the season, averaging 2.39 million viewers in its final hour.

The Braves are often imitated and admired for making mixed-use development a core part of their operation, and the club’s latest financial results reaffirmed why that’s the case. 

Third-quarter results released Wednesday showed that The Battery surrounding Truist Park again represented the fastest-growing part of the Braves’ business, and easily helped overcome what was the club’s first non-playoff season since 2017. 

Overall, Braves revenue grew 7% to $311.5 million during the quarter, while adjusted earnings more than doubled to $67.2 million. Revenue from the mixed-use development, however, grew 56% to $27.2 million as The Battery becomes increasingly crucial to what the Braves do. The third quarter that was reported included the 2025 MLB All-Star Game, which was, in part, a showcase for The Battery.

“What we’re doing within this organization is truly unique, not only in baseball but in all of professional sports,” said Braves chair Terry McGuirk in a call with analysts. “The continued momentum and strategic interplay between our baseball and real estate segments remains remarkable, and really reflects the long-term vision that has set the Atlanta Braves organization apart. 

“Every sports organization is trying to emulate our success in combining a stadium environment with a large, bustling mixed-use development,” McGuirk said. 

To McGuirk’s comment, virtually every major stadium and arena project in process in some fashion—including those for the Browns, Commanders, Stars, Bears, Rays, 76ers and Flyers, and one just approved for the Spurs—features a mixed-use development that is central to the entire effort.

Spending Matters

In that analyst call Wednesday, McGuirk dodged a question about the impact on MLB of the Dodgers, by far the sport’s biggest-payroll club, winning a second straight World Series. McGuirk, however, did say he intends for the Braves to be a high-spending franchise going forward and said Atlanta will be an active player in the upcoming free-agent market.

“We’ve always tried to be a leader in player compensation. Our goal is to be a top-five salary team,” McGuirk said. “We’re currently a top-10 team, and haven’t been out of that range in some time. Being back in the top five is a place I want to get to. I think we’re capable of doing that. … I think you’ll see us quite active in the free-agent market and in the trade market. We’re a win-now team.”

The Spurs are set to move to a new downtown area after San Antonio–area voters approved a county-level funding measure Tuesday. 

Bexar County, Texas, voters passed a $311 million measure that will help fund a $1.3 billion arena at Hemisfair, a downtown location that was the site of the 1968 World’s Fair. Separately, the city of San Antonio will contribute $489 million, with that move not subject to a citizen vote, and the Spurs will pay $500 million, plus all cost overruns. The team also intends to bring in private partners for help with a mixed-use development surrounding the arena. 

The long-discussed arena plan will allow the team to depart the 23-year-old Frost Bank Center, which is aging and increasingly does not have amenities offered in modern venues such as California’s Chase Center and Intuit Dome.

“The community has spoken,” Spurs Sports and Entertainment chair Peter J. Holt said after the vote. “We love this city, we love this county, and the county and the city love us back.”

That Bexar County vote, however, was close, with about 52% of voters supporting the measure in the face of significant opposition from a variety of corners. The county funds for the arena will come from hotel and rental car tax receipts, and the decision ends any possibility of the Spurs relocating to another market, such as Austin, where they have a G League team. 

City of San Antonio

The Spurs intend to open their new arena sometime in the early 2030s. The current lease at Frost Bank Center expires in 2032. Once it opens, it will leave the 76ers as the only NBA team not playing in a downtown arena. That team struck a deal early this year with Comcast Spectacor to develop a new facility in the south Philadelphia sports complex to succeed Xfinity Mobile Arena. 

The Wemby Factor

The San Antonio facility issue is developing as Spurs phenom Victor Wembanyama has started the season in torrid fashion. Wembanyama and Spurs legends such as Manu Ginóbili were part of heavy pro-arena messaging from the team leading up to the vote. The new venue should be ready for what could still very much be the prime of Wembanyama’s career.

“I think about my future—and my present—all the time, in San Antonio, of course,” Wembanyama said about the arena vote. “And recently a little about the arena because it’s been a subject. … For all areas of my career, I’m very intentional. Even though some things take time [and] patience is needed, I’ve never been one to waste time.”