Comcast customers miss Huskies’ televised season opener

Much to the dismay of hard-core Husky fans, the Dawgs’ televised season opener Saturday night was not aired on Comcast Xfinity’s expanded basic tier subscription.

The Big Ten Network (BTN) and Comcast are embroiled in a heated battle that kept the game off Comcast’s expanded basic tier subscription on the west coast.

According to Bay Area News Group’s Jon Wilner, both sides spent the day Friday in negotiations, to try to avert a Comcast blackout of both the Huskies’ and Oregon Ducks’ season openers.

Since no agreement was reached, thousands of Husky fans missed the first game of the Coach Jedd Fisch era, as the Huskies defeated Weber State, 35-3.

On X, retired Fox Sports President Bob Thompson called Friday’s talks “a big day in this negotiation.”

He added, “More importantly it is a holiday weekend. I can guarantee you that neither party wants to be on one endless zoom call!”

Fox owns the Big Ten Network, which is asking to be moved onto Comcast’s expanded basic tier on systems along the west coast, since UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington have entered the conference.

But so far, Comcast has not agreed.

That means even if you paid to see Big Ten Network games on a Comcast sports tier, you didn’t have access to games played by the four west coast schools. Instead, the Arizona-New Mexico game aired on the Fox Sports channel.

Similarly, subscribers in Portland were stuck watching a Purdue-Indiana State game, instead of the Ducks’ opener against Idaho.

With no deal in place, it’s likely the stalemate will continue for days, or even weeks.

Next week, two more games on BTN involve west coast teams: Eastern Michigan at Washington and Utah State at USC.

Last week, the Big Ten Network released a statement:

“The Big Ten Network is proud to present an expanded slate of live sporting events featuring the newest members of the B1G conference, however most Comcast subscribers will not see these games. As the one distribution partner that declined to expand along with us, Comcast Xfinity viewers in many areas will not have access to live broadcasts of the highly anticipated inaugural B1G season games for Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington.

“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.”

Tom Brock is a weekend editor, reporter and anchor for KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories here.