Walt Disney Co. on Sunday pulled ESPN and other channels from DirecTV just minutes before kickoff of a high-profile USC football game and during the U.S. Open tennis tournament, angering sports fans caught in the middle of a contentious contract dispute.

More than 10 million DirecTV and U-Verse video customers were caught up in the battle when DirecTV lost its rights to broadcast Disney programming, including Disney-owned television stations ABC.

The two companies had been negotiating for weeks at DirecTV’s headquarters in El Segundo, but were unable to agree on a new licensing agreement before the Sept. 1 deadline.

The outage is the latest sign of the pressure on traditional television companies as customers switch to streaming.

“Consumers are going to blame someone, but it was really both companies that got into this position,” Ross Benes, senior analyst at Emarketer, said recently.

This is what you need to know about the dispute:

Why does this happen?

Pay-TV providers, including DirecTV, have absorbed steep increases in the cost of licensing programming as cord-cutting erodes their customer bases. TV distributors have struggled to make money from their video channel businesses and fear that big rate hikes will only drive away more customers.

The cost of broadcasting broadcast channels (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) and sports channels, including ESPN, has skyrocketed as programmers try to pass on the increases they agreed to pay to sports leagues and conferences. Increasingly, the shrinking base of traditional pay-TV subscribers is being asked to shoulder these increases.

DirecTV asked Disney for flexibility to offer smaller, genre-themed packages. Disney has long required that pay-TV companies carry its cable channels, including ESPN, in the most homes of their customers. ESPN is the most expensive basic cable channel, costing distributors nearly $10 per month per subscriber home.

That has led to one of the thorniest issues in the current dispute: Disney’s requirements for “minimum penetration” for its channels, including ESPN. Disney requires that ESPN be provided to about 82% of DirecTV subscribers.

Over the years, the minimum penetration practice has allowed Disney to collect huge sums of money, even from subscribers who don’t watch much sports. Pay-TV companies have to pay fines if they don’t meet the minimum threshold.

DirecTV argues that since less than 40 percent of its customers regularly watch Disney sports content, it is unfair to burden those subscribers with the high cost of sports programming. Disney argues that it invests heavily in high-quality programming and has offered its channels, including ESPN, to DirecTV at market prices.

DirecTV is trying to lower penetration rates and reduce the costs it must pay if the threshold is not met.

DirecTV Satellite Dishes in Culver City.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The satellite provider also notes that only 10% of its customer base regularly watches children’s programming, while more than 80% of its subscribers pay for those channels.

DirecTV and other distributors have also chafed at efforts by Disney and other entertainment giants to build their own streaming services that would compete with their longtime partners, the pay-TV companies. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp. teamed up this year to build a sports streaming service, Venu, as an alternative to companies like DirecTV. The effort was challenged in court, and a federal judge in New York granted a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking Venu’s launch.

How long will this dispute last?

That is unclear.

A year ago, a similar dispute between Disney and Charter Communications, which operates the Spectrum service, lasted 12 days.

Following that contentious battle, Charter dropped several smaller Disney-owned channels, including Freeform, and gained the right to offer Disney streaming services, including Disney+, as part of its bundle. However, the outage proved costly for Charter, which lost more subscribers than expected.

The outage ended just as ESPN’s first “Monday Night Football” game of the season was about to start.

Normally, a dispute ends when both parties feel the economic pain.

“The stakes are always high,” Benes said. “But if (DirecTV) doesn’t have ESPN channels for the next three months, that’s going to lead to even more cord-cutting. It could be another nail in the coffin.”

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is expected to return for a “Monday Night Football” game on Sept. 9 after torn his left Achilles tendon in last year’s season opener against the New York Jets.

(Adam Hunger/Associated Press)

Which programs might be affected by this?

Customers living in cities served by a Disney-owned ABC television station, including KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles, will see interruptions in some of their favorite programming, including “Good Morning America,” “Jeopardy” and local newscasts. Disney owns eight ABC stations, including in San Francisco, Fresno, New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia and Raleigh-Durham.

For now, the pain is being felt mostly by sports fans. College football fans are still disappointed that they missed Sunday’s USC-Louisiana State University clash, in which the 23rd-ranked Trojans pulled off a thrilling, last-minute victory over the 13th-ranked Tigers.

ESPN has the rights to the US Open tennis tournament, which is in the final rounds with quarterfinals and semifinals for men and women. The championships are this weekend.

American football is also popular on ABC and ESPN.

Monday Night Football kicks off on ESPN and ABC on Monday, featuring a headline matchup of the New York Jets against the San Francisco 49ers, two markets served by ABC stations. The game is expected to feature the return of Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who suffered a season-ending injury in last year’s “MNF” opener.

“World News Tonight with David Muir” is one of the programs of ABC.

(Heidi Gutman / ABC News)

ABC will also host the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump on September 10. However, other networks will also air ABC’s feed of the debate.

The Disney network is also airing the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards show on Sept. 15, so millions of customers will be unable to watch the TV fan festival — hosted by father-and-son comedy duo Eugene and Dan Levy — if the dispute drags on for two weeks.

Is there a solution?

Viewers can access ABC signals via a digital over-the-air antenna. But that won’t help viewers of Disney’s cable channels, ESPN, ESPN2, Disney Channel, FX or National Geographic.

Competing services offer the Disney cable channels, including YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV (owned by Disney), FuboTV, and traditional cable and satellite providers including Charter Spectrum, Cox Communications, Comcast and Dish Networks.

Can I get my money back?

Yes, a little bit. DirecTV is offering customers $20 credits to help offset the disruption. Customers must request the credit on an upcoming bill.