SEATTLE — The University of Washington (UW) football program embarks on a new era Saturday, as the school will play its first game as a member of the Big Ten Conference after decades of competing in the Pacific-12 Conference.
Fittingly, UW's first football game in its new conference will be televised on Big Ten Network (BTN). One problem for some local Husky fans, however, is that customers of Comcast Xfinity likely will not be able to watch the UW game live, even if they have paid for the company's package that includes Big Ten Network.
This is due to an ongoing dispute between Comcast and BTN. Prior to UW joining the Big Ten Conference, the Seattle area was considered outside of the network's territory as there were no teams in the conference anywhere near the Pacific Northwest.
However, once UW, the University of Oregon, the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) joined the Big Ten, the conference's territory expanded significantly to the West Coast. As college sports have gotten underway this month, fans in the Big Ten's new markets, including western Washington, have noticed that live games are blacked out on BTN.
BTN told KING 5 in a statement that Comcast Xfinity is the only one of its distribution partners that did not expand along with the network. UW events on BTN can be seen on any other carrier that offers the conference's network.
"Comcast Xfinity viewers in many areas will not have access to live broadcasts of the highly anticipated inaugural Big Ten season games for Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington," read part of BTN's statement. "If you are an Xfinity subscriber and cannot find the Ducks, Huskies, Bruins or Trojans on the Big Ten Network in your area, please contact 1-800-Comcast or go to ALLBTNGAMES.com.”
The above website allows fans to enter their ZIP code to see if their network will have access to live BTN games for the new teams to the conference. It also has a link to allow fans to call Comcast directly or to sign up for email updates about BTN.
“We’re sensitive to the impact these costs have on our customers and have been in discussions with FOX and The Big Ten Network to find a solution to make certain former Pac-12 games available to the people who want them while not forcing others to pay for content they don’t want to watch," a Comcast spokesperson told KING 5 in a statement. "We hope to be able to reach a fair agreement with FOX and the Big Ten Network to be able to offer these games to our customers.”
While discussions seem to be ongoing, it is unclear whether the dispute will be resolved before UW's first regular-season game on Saturday night against Weber State at 8 p.m. UW's second game against Eastern Michigan on Sept. 7 will also be televised exclusively on BTN.
Husky fans who have Comcast Xfinity might want to consider alternative options for tuning into the team's first few regular-season games. Until the issues between Comcast and BTN are resolved, local fans of the Huskies will not be able to tune in for any live event featuring UW, such as the Sept. 12 women's soccer match against USC.
