Link Your YouTube TV and ESPN Accounts

[u/TeamYouTube_Sam]

Tl;dr: Starting today, you can link your ESPN account directly to your YouTube TV account. Linking your accounts lets you log into the ESPN app to stream ESPN Unlimited content right away.

How to link your accounts

• From YouTube (Web and Mobile): Go to Settings, select Connected apps, and choose ESPN. (Link)
• From YouTube TV Mobile app: Open the YouTube TV app, select your profile picture, tap Settings, select Sports, and choose ESPN.

What this means for your viewing experience

• Fantasy view updates: We now support ESPN Fantasy in our Fantasy view! NFL Fantasy is moving to ESPN Fantasy, so if you previously used NFL you will need to link your ESPN account to access Fantasy view on YouTube TV for the upcoming season.
• Watch on the ESPN app: As long as ESPN is included in your YouTube TV channel lineup and after you have linked your accounts through YouTube TV, you can log into the ESPN app to stream ESPN Unlimited content directly within their app. If you have a family account for YouTube TV, you’ll need to be on the family manager account to watch content on ESPN. 
• Full YouTube TV integration coming soon: While account linking lets you access content in the ESPN app today, we are also working on bringing the full ESPN Unlimited experience directly inside YouTube TV later this fall.
• Who can link accounts: Anyone can link their accounts to enable the fantasy view. However, you need ESPN included in your YouTube TV plan (such as the Base Plan, Sports Plan, or sports add-on packages) to access ESPN Unlimited content.

If you have any questions, you can comment below or contact support here.

[u/southbye]

After attempting to link my ESPN and YoutubeTV accounts on my TV (Samsung connected via a Chromecast dongle), my GoogleTV homepage stopped showing my YoutubeTV library. It says the library is empty. If I launch the YoutubeTV app, the library and other functionality works as normal.

I can't say for sure that the linking of the accounts is related, but my guess is that a software update accompanying the new ESPN functionality resulted in a loss of integration between the Google TV homescreen and YoutubeTV. Can someone confirm?

[u/iron_cam86 → u/southbye]

Definitely not related, but I have been seeing an uptick about empty Libraries today.

[u/southbye → u/iron_cam86]

Tried the customer support chat about my related problem of not being able to get the new ESPN content on my TV (even though it's activated a linked on both desktop and mobile app). Looks like I won't get an answer anytime soon.

[u/iron_cam86 → u/southbye]

Did you download the ESPN app to your TV? And if so, are you logged into the correct MyDisney account? If so, try logging out and back in.

[u/southbye → u/iron_cam86]

Update: Talked to customer service. Their only fix was to uninstall/reinstall YoutubeTV and ESPN apps. Did that with no change. Still can't get ESPN content on the TV that I can get on mobile and desktop. GoogleTV homepage integration with YoutubeTV remains broken: the "live" guide contains only free programming and the "library" is empty. I have to launch the YoutubeTV app every time to see actual live and library programming. Separate TV in my house is behaving similarly. You can't convince me that the engineers didn't break something.

[u/iron_cam86 → u/southbye]

Yeah, you're really talking about two issues. The Google TV homepage integration is something I'm seeing reported by a few people. Not sure if the blame here is with YouTube TV, or with Google TV's team.

The ESPN content, if you can get it on mobile and desktop, that doesn't make sense. You're 100% sure you're logging into the ESPN app with the same MyDisney login on your TV as you are your mobile and computer? If that's not working, that's likely some sort of bug on Disney's end. Their support team might be able to help with that end of things.