Just for reference...the Cardinals just signed a 15-year/$1 billion deal from 2018-2033 with Fox Sports. I don't think other teams are expecting a change any time soon.
Wow. So almost 70 million a year. That is bonkers. There is no way The Cards could get that type of money any other way but the current model.
But if people start cutting the cord and there are fewer and fewer people subscribing to cable packages that carry Fox Sports, at some point Fox Sports can't afford to be paying that much and stay in business.
But thinking about it,lots of people want to buy stations a la carte, I have a feeling that would be more expensive than the current bundled model. If I pay $120 to DirecTV the main reason is for all the ESPNs (for live programing) All the Fox Sports, NBC Sports, MLB, NFL, TGC, Root, HBO, TNT, FX, TBS, news channels.... All of those I can stream from my iPad or Laptop, except Root.
If there was the ability to buy each of those a la carte, I'd bet they would be close to $15 a month each, so I am right back at 120-150 a month. But without all the additional 200 channels, that I do watch on occasion.
It is the sports viewer that is keeping this model afloat, if I didn't care about live sports I would have ditched cable years ago.