If you just want to watch spots put up an OTA antenna and you will get as many games as you see on ESPN. What ESPN specializes in is sports commentary, which is often worthless.
I'm saying this as an NBA/MLS junkie that's cut the cord.
Mondays are on ESPN but Thursday night is on network TV. Not that you'd want to watch a TNF game. And MNF is a good excuse to go to the pub and watch the game.
Last year I believe Yahoo and Twitter had a couple, TNF seems to be the place to experiment with different distributors.
it used to be the case that what ESPN offered was a deeper niche of games
ie, if the team you wanted to follow was Ohio State, you're probably ok with just the OTA stuff
if you wanted to follow, say Northwestern, your more at the mercy of ESPN
increasingly, that's not even the case
this year the college football playoff was on ESPN
the Saturday games in the Final Four were on TBS
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(it might be the case that limiting yourself to what comes OTA is a more healthy sports information diet, that seems like a different argument though)