YouTube TV cuts off game feed on Lakers

Sean Beckwith|published: Sat 18th December, 10:39 2021

Lakers fans were spared having to watch Anthony Davis and the Lakers finish against Dallas. source: AP

Cord-cutting Lakers fans enjoyed one of their better moments of the season Friday night as YouTube TV cut off ESPN and all the other Disney-owned channels at midnight Eastern amid that bane of streamers and cable customers alike, a carriage dispute.

The COVID-depleted and injury-stricken Lakers were in the middle of getting pounded by the Timberwolves, 110-92, which must have been a joy not to watch the end of, but college football fans were not so lucky. The dramatic semifinal between North Dakota State and James Madison came down to the wire, with the Bison squeaking out a 20-14 win that a whole lot of people didn’t get to see.

At least the game ended with the same score as when it went off the air, and people now have access to an entire internet to keep up with a game they can’t watch. That’s progress since the Heidi Game.

The good news for the Lakers, who had their season high-tying three-game winning streak snapped, is that Friday night probably won’t wind up being anything that anyone talks about half a century from now. At least, the Lakers should hope so, because as someone who doesn’t have YouTube TV, once that football game ended, LA getting blown out was pretty much all that was left of live TV sports for the evening, and that was ugly.

At least the initial signs on the knee injury that forced Anthony Davis out of the game were good?

That’s cool

Decoldest Crawford had been on his way to LSU, but with Mickey Joseph going to Nebraska to become the Cornhuskers’ wide receivers coach after having recruited him to the Tigers, Crawford decided to head to Lincoln, too.

The head coach at Nebraska, of course, is Scott Frost. Bringing in Decoldest Crawford? That’s going to send chills through the rest of the Big Ten.