Sports in general, at least in my lifetime has operated under the assumption of continued growth. In other words, every year there's been more and more interest and thus more and more money. I mean look at the salaries for professional athletes and coaches. They've only gone up and exponentially at that. TV contracts have only gotten bigger and bigger and the associated costs of being a sports fan have only gone up (ticket prices, cable packages, pay per view, etc). We've kind of reached this strange crux where things area going to change and change drastically. ESPN has struggled, not because they've lost viewership but because they didn't gain the viewership they were banking on when they paid for the NBA and NCAA broadcast rights. They assumed more and more people would watch and the it just hasn't happened. Their ratings for anything besides Monday night football are not near what they expected and thus the advertising profits aren't there either. A heard about a recent gallup poll where the number of Americans who consider themselves fans were down for every major sport besides basketball which was up slightly and soccer. Baseball fans are literally a dying breed. Auto racing has reached twenty year lows in fan interest. Sunday and Monday night football are still the most watched programs in America but overall NFL viewership and interest is down. Fan attendance is mostly down across the entire sports spectrum. Young people (18-35) are ditching cable and satellite altogether. The old model of putting television rights contracts up for bid every decade or so and collecting billions won't fly anymore. Broadcast rights are going to have to be multi media. It might be wise for the individual leagues to create their own streaming services and cut out the middle man. For example, you could subscribe to the NCAA package and have access to every game through them for a premium. No need to pay for ESPN when you only want it for NCAA coverage. Or NBA or NFL or whatever.
