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You'll no longer be able to watch ESPN videos on YouTube

Alou Diarra of France looks dejected
Alou Diarra of France looks dejected Getty

If you want to watch ESPN videos, you'll have to go somewhere other than YouTube.

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The Disney-owned sports media conglomerate said Friday that it was moving all of the videos that had been available on YouTube to its own websites. 

So if you want to see videos of Grantland podcasts, which used to be available on one of Grantland's YouTube channels, you'll have to go to the actual Grantland website to watch them.

A banner at Grantland's YouTube channel, which has over 370,000 subscribers, but no longer has any videos, notifies visitors that the YouTube channel have moved, and directs people to Grantland.com/video.

grantland has moved espn youtube
Grantland's YouTube channel doesn't have any videos, and now directs users to visit another website to watch videos. YouTube / Screenshot

ESPN's move comes as a response to YouTube's new new $9.99 per month subscription option called YouTube Red, which the streaming video giant announced on Wednesday.

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YouTube Red subscribers don't have to sit through preroll video ads before they watch YouTube videos. They also get exclusive content and other perks, like the ability to watch videos offline and access to Google's Spotify-like streaming music service.

But because YouTube added a new type of service, it also required its millions of partners — everyone from YouTube stars to big media companies — to agree to new advertising and revenue terms. Those new terms are unclear — YouTube declined to discuss them with Tech Insider — but ESPN has not agreed to them. 

“ESPN is not currently part of the Red service," an ESPN spokesperson said in a statement to Tech Insider, adding that videos that were previously on YouTube would now be viewable on other ESPN sites.

A YouTube spokesperson told Tech Insider that Disney, ESPN's parent company, is part of YouTube Red. But because of content rights issues, ESPN won't be part of YouTube's new service when it launches next week.

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YouTube told Tech Insider on Wednesday that if a YouTube partner doesn't agree to the new terms, then their videos will be listed as "private" on YouTube when the service launches. That essentially means that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for regular people to find them. 

YouTube said it would do this "because it isn't fair to ask a fan to pay $9.99 for a service that has less content than a free service."

Deadspin first reported on Thursday evening that videos were disappearing from some of ESPN's YouTube channels.

ESPN YouTube
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