boomers. And they're economically dying out as they retire and the medical industrial complex wrings out the last of their money. Plenty of things cost a multiple of ESPN's cost and are doing fine because they sell well to young people, think of the stereotypical $100+ cell phone service. The vast majority of ESPNs viewers remember when they heard JFK was shot, their viewers are not the Challenger explosion or 9/11 generations.
Baseball has died among youth and the average fan age is now going up more than a year per calendar year. NBA average fan is much younger, like middle aged gen-x. The majority of PGA viewers are nursing home age, golf is so dead, so cringy 90s/00s. The youngest sports are major league soccer and hockey about a third millennial or younger for both, the only pro sports of 2050 are going to be spanish speaking soccer and the few remaining northern state whites watching hockey, the other sports are dead when the boomers are gone.
There is also a compression effect not seen in the past such that the NFL superbowel now gets over 10x the viewers of the world series. The average baseball game has fewer viewers than my county has residents. The average NBA game is only slightly better. In the old days there was a "wide world of sports" concept which is already dead. There isn't a "sports" industry anymore, there's american pro football, soccer for the spanish speakers, hockey and nascar for the legacy being eliminated whites, basketball for the blacks, and the also-ran sports that statistically no one watches.