US media giant Disney has finally struck a new carriage agreement with rival Comcast’s Xfinity telecoms service, allowing the NFL Network and NFL Redzone content to return to the Xfinity TV platform ahead of the new season.
Disney-owned sports broadcast heavyweight ESPN acquired the 24/7 NFL Network channel, the NFL Redzone multi-view property, and other NFL Media assets back in August 2025.
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The following April, these services went dark on Xfinity TV services, after Comcast and Disney failed to agree a renewed carriage deal.
That carriage dispute has lasted almost the entire NFL offseason, but with the league’s restart just weeks away (the league kicks off on September 10), an accord has now been reached ensuring that Xfinity customers will not miss any regular season games.
Disney by way of its expanded sales role, asked Comcast for a greater financial commitment, which forced the stalemate.
Indeed, at the time Comcast said that Disney had demanded “double the fees for the same content” and for expanded NFL Network and NFL Redzone distribution across Xfinity payment tiers, effectively asking for “millions more pay for a channel they don’t watch”, per Comcast.
Disney, for its part, accused Comcast of derailing “good faith” negotiations.
Despite a deal being reached, it remains unclear which side was moved from its original position.
This is not the first carriage dispute involving Comcast and the NFL Network; even dating back to before the ESPN acquisition, there had been issues.
In 2023, NFL Network went dark on Xfinity TV for 24 hours after a dispute between the NFL and the cable giant over carriage fees.
No formal announcement was made, but Xfinity's customer support Twitter account responded to subscriber inquiries with the statement: “We have renewed our agreement with the NFL Network. At this time, all content has been restored, and you are able to access NFL Network programming as normal.”
