BUFFALO, N.Y. — Many people turned their TVs to ESPN2 on Thursday night to watch Buffalo native Jessica Pegula compete in the second round of the U.S. Open.
Spectrum customers, however, had no such luck. ESPN2 was blacked out, with a message from the company.
"Spectrum is on your side and fighting to keep costs down while protecting and maximizing customer choice. The rising cost of programming is the single greatest factor in higher cable. TV prices, and we are fighting hard to hold the line on programming rates imposed on us by companies like Disney.
"We offered Disney a fair deal, yet they are demanding an excessive increase. They also want to limit our ability to provide greater customer choice in programming packages forcing you to take and pay for channels you may not want.
"We are very disappointed with their position, which has negatively impacted our customers."
Underneath those messages, Spectrum asked customers to scan a code and visit a website "to voice your concerns."
Pegula won her second-match 6-3, 6-1.
The U.S. Open wasn't the only big sports event of the night. No. 14-ranked Utah and Florida played in one of the more highly anticipated matchups of college football's big opening weekend, and that game was carried on ESPN.
College football games were also being carried by the SEC Network, ACC Network, and ESPNU on Thursday night.
Spectrum and ESPN both started to quickly trend on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, as people used a barrage of memes and GIFs to express how they felt about the high-profile disagreement between the companies.
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