College football fans were furious after Spectrum blacked out ESPN before Florida-Utah kickoff

College football season is finally upon us, unless you’re a Spectrum customer.

After a long offseason, Thursday marked one of the first major nights of the college football calendar. Week 0 has come and gone, with Thursday kicking off the beginning of the first big wave of college football action. Unfortunately for Spectrum customers, the party was cut short early before kickoff.

You see, Spectrum and Disney (who owns ESPN) are currently in a major dispute over money. Specifically, the fight is over access fees that Spectrum would owe Disney, with the cable company believing the fees to be too exorbitant.

And now, it seems that the gauntlet has been thrown. As Florida and Utah were lining up for kickoffs, Spectrum cut the feed to ESPN and the multitude of other Disney-owned channels, replacing them with a message to their customers.

Currently airing on all Disney-owned channels on Charter Spectrum: pic.twitter.com/sNlkxSktwy

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) September 1, 2023

Blackouts are miserable at the best of times, but losing access to channels you paid for because of a monetary dispute did not sit well with Spectrum customers at all. Here’s how college football fans reacted to Spectrum’s ESPN blackout ahead of Utah and Florida’s highly-anticipated kickoff.

I suddenly don’t have ESPN because according to Spectrum Disney cut them off. Tonight. Before kickoff. WTF?

— Jeff Schultz (@JeffSchultzATL) September 1, 2023

Look at these awesome first quarter highlights

Thanks Spectrum & ESPN! pic.twitter.com/cWvYXNZ23J

— Tony Clements (@TonyCMKE) September 1, 2023

Lmao tell me spectrum didn’t just literally cut ESPN off right before kickoff of the Florida vs Utah game….

— Mike 🏈 footballiance.com (@DraftMaverick) September 1, 2023