Once the value as a legacy linear channel is eroded, ESPN can easily pivot to a high value streaming offering. Pretty much every contract ESPN has signed in recent years gives them linear and streaming rights to the properties, they just keep the major properties only on linear to keep the exclusivity and monthly fees higher.
Other media companies are putting their sports directly on their main general streaming because they don’t have enough premium content to warrant a standalone product. But ESPN does and already has the mechanism in place (and branding!) to make ESPN+ a premium sports streaming product at a high price to replace the revenue stream of the linear channels.
I mean both legacy media and tech streamers are making big efforts to acquire sports properties because they know it’s the only stuff that watched live which makes it huge for advertising. It certainly doesn’t seem like value of sports broadcasting is going away especially when you see the silly money that Apple, Amazon and now Google are spending just to get into the game.
If the asking price for rights for any property becomes simply so large that it’s not financially viable, then ESPN simply won’t bid/pay - and presumably neither would anyone else. And the price would then come down until it meets its value. The reason sports rights continue to rise is because broadcasters are actually able to recoup that cost and find value there; they aren’t rising simply because the leagues are asking.
