Update, Sept. 15, 2026: The September 8, 2026 claim deadline described below has passed. Filing a new claim is no longer possible. What’s still ahead: an objection deadline of December 1, 2026, for anyone who wants to formally challenge the settlement’s terms, and a final court approval hearing on January 14, 2027, before any payments go out. The account below reflects how the settlement stood before the claim deadline closed.
If you paid for YouTube TV or a DirecTV streaming service any time in the last several years, September 8, 2026 was the last chance to ask for a piece of a $50 million settlement Disney agreed to pay over claims it helped keep streaming-TV prices high.
The case is Biddle, et al. V. The Walt Disney Company, an antitrust lawsuit — a case accusing a company of using its market power to squeeze out competition and raise prices — filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (case No. 5:22-cv-07317-EJD). Disney disclosed in a June 2025 SEC filing that it had reached a settlement in principle, and a federal judge has since given the deal preliminary approval. Agreeing to pay a settlement does not mean a court found Disney broke the law; Disney denies any wrongdoing and denies violating antitrust law.
Key facts
- What: a $50 million settlement Disney agreed to pay over claims it helped keep YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream prices high
- Case: Biddle, et al. V. The Walt Disney Company, U.S. District Court, N.D. Cal., No. 5:22-cv-07317-EJD
- Who’s eligible: YouTube TV, DirecTV Stream, DirecTV Now, or AT&T TV Now subscribers between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2026
- Claim deadline: September 8, 2026 — file online, or postmark a mailed claim, by today
- Opt-out deadline: September 8, 2026
- Object deadline: December 1, 2026
- Final court approval hearing: January 14, 2027
- Payout: not yet determined — the fund is split 90/10 by state, then paid pro rata by subscription length and total valid claims filed
- Disney denies any wrongdoing; the settlement is not an admission it broke the law
Timeline
- April 2019 – March 2026 — eligible subscription window for YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream, including its earlier names DirecTV Now and AT&T TV Now
- November 2022 — two related lawsuits filed against Disney, one from each subscriber group
- June 2025 — Disney discloses in an SEC filing that it reached a settlement in principle
- September 8, 2026 — deadline to file a claim or opt out of the settlement
- December 1, 2026 — deadline to object to the settlement
- January 14, 2027 — final court approval hearing
Who can file a claim
You’re eligible if you paid for a YouTube TV subscription, a DirecTV Stream subscription, or one of DirecTV Stream’s earlier names — DirecTV Now or AT&T TV Now — at any point between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2026. Both YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream customers are covered by the same $50 million fund and file on the same claim form, because the case combines two related lawsuits that were filed within weeks of each other in November 2022, one from each group of subscribers, both naming Disney.
You do not need to dig up old bills or receipts. Claimants self-certify their subscription dates on the official claim form, signing under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate.
What the lawsuit accused Disney of doing
The named plaintiff, Heather Biddle, and other subscribers alleged that Disney used its control over must-have channels — chiefly ESPN — to force streaming distributors into carriage contracts that required bundling those channels into base packages, blocking cheaper alternatives. Court filings also describe Disney using its ownership of the competing Hulu + Live TV service to keep YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream from pricing below Hulu, which plaintiffs say functioned as a price floor that pushed up streaming-TV costs across the board. Disney has not admitted to any of it.
How and where to file
Claims go in online at OnlineTVSettlement.com, or by mail to the Biddle v. Disney Settlement Administrator, PO Box 4720, Portland, OR 97208-4720 — mailed forms need to be postmarked by today’s date to count. The administrator can also be reached by phone at 1-877-704-2517. September 8 is also the deadline to formally opt out of the settlement; the deadline to object is later, December 1, 2026.
What you’ll actually get paid, and when
Nobody knows the exact dollar amount yet. Payouts will be pro rata — meaning the $50 million fund is divided based on how long each approved claimant subscribed and how many valid claims are ultimately filed, after legal fees and administration costs are taken out. The more people who file, the smaller each individual share; a shorter subscription window means a smaller share too. No fixed or estimated per-person figure has been published.
Payment won’t happen soon, either way. A final court approval hearing is scheduled for January 14, 2027, and no money can go out before that hearing takes place. No payment date has been set beyond that.
Not the same settlement you may have seen before
There’s a separate, unrelated $7.5 million settlement between Google/YouTube and California residents over automatic-renewal billing practices, covering subscriptions from February 2017 through October 2021. That case had its own claim deadline of August 30, 2026, which has already passed, and it paid out an estimated $92.26 per claim. It has nothing to do with Disney, ESPN or antitrust law — if you’re filing today, make sure you’re on OnlineTVSettlement.com for the Biddle case, not a site for that older, closed claim.
The fine print worth knowing
One detail specific to this settlement: the fund isn’t divided evenly by claim alone. The settlement notice splits the fund 90/10 by geography before any individual payout math: 90% goes to residents of states with indirect-purchaser antitrust laws — what the notice calls “Repealer” states. The remaining 10% is shared among residents of 14 “Non-Repealer” states:
- Alaska
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- Texas
- Virginia
- Washington
- Wyoming
Only after that state-by-state split is applied does the pro-rata math — based on subscription length and the total number of valid claims filed — divide each pool among individual claimants. The split traces back to differences in state antitrust standing rules stemming from a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court case, Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois.