Whenever Atlanta United begins playing this year it doesn’t seem likely as of Friday that games televised on regional Fox Sports channels will be broadcast on Hulu or YouTube TV.
The team’s games will continue to be broadcast by its partner Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns the Fox Sports regional networks, including Fox Sports South and Fox Sports Southeast, which have carried its games for the past four seasons. National games will still be broadcast on ESPN, Fox or Univision.
Sinclair made the decision last season not to allow Hulu or YouTube TV to broadcast Atlanta United’s games because a Sinclair spokeswoman said they weren’t being compensated fairly by Disney, which owns Hulu, or Google, which owns YouTube TV.
The spokeswoman said that Sinclair has tried to negotiate with Disney and Google, but they aren’t willing to negotiate “in good faith” and that they don’t want to deliver regional sports networks to their platforms.
Sinclair’s full statement:
“Sinclair remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with both Hulu and YouTube TV to carry the Fox RSNs. At no time have we demanded exorbitant fees for these channels. Instead, we have consistently offered both pay TV providers extremely fair deals in line with what hundreds of other TV services have agreed to and continue to agree to. However, despite high profile ad campaigns and website claims touting their live sports content, we have yet to see that same commitment from either provider to put consumers first. Unfortunately, at this point we have no choice but to conclude that neither Disney (which owns Hulu) nor Google (which owns YouTube) is willing to engage in good faith discussions or return the RSNs to their platforms.”
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