ESPN paid huge amounts because they had to outbid the competition. If sportsbroadcasting gets less profitable, sports will get less profitable.
Some would argue that that bit of economics is part of what is diluting the product on the field. There is little incentive to keep mid-career, mid-talent guys around, when you can use guys on rookie contracts that are half or a quarter the price, for 75% of the skill. Except there's a lot of deficit in experience and savviness.
But let's say you are 15 year old super talents that has every potential to make many millions in the NFL today. Would they still pursue football if they could only make at most 25% of the highest paid players today or would they focus on another sport, and if so which sport might do better in this future? Perhaps baseball or soccer will become more popular since if you're not getting paid a lot why risk the head trauma.
Q: Some people have been thinking this new streaming service will offer a flat rate, roughly the $6 or $7 a month that customers pay on their cable bill to get ESPN. Is that right?
A: It’s not going to be that way at all. There will be really variable pricing and multiple packages to consumers. People may just want to subscribe during the football season. Or maybe they want to pay just for a summer, just for a weekend, just for a game. We will have customization and personalization. I think everything ultimately will be on an à la carte basis; a lot of people may subscribe to the whole thing and get a discount for that.
(1) http://variety.com/2016/film/features/bob-iger-disney-ceo-sh...
There is no reason for anyone to get this fired up over sports.
To actually watch most NFL games, though, you would need some kind of a subscription that gets local CBS, NBC and Fox channels, though. ESPN only carries Monday Night Football.