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What would it take for ESPN to break free from the cable/satellite companies and associated contracts?  If they could go completely a la carte, offer mainly live games and successful programming like College Game Day, they could do massive layoffs, cut the unprofitable content, and get more in the black. 

I personally would be irked by that, because it means in football season I'd have to turn on YTTV for FOX, NBC, and CBS, and then also whatever form ESPN's revamped service was.  However, from their standpoint, perhaps it would be worth it.

I imagine they'd lose viewers in that model because a certain amount of viewers will only access them through tradition cable/satellite.  But with an eye on the future, I think that stuff is dead anyway.  Judging by my step-sons and everyone their age I know, generations behind mine aren't "watching TV" anymore.  It's stream-or-die, and they'll never have cable unless some massive shift happens.  A move like that might hurt in the short-term, but may pay off long term.  Not sure.  

What would it take for ESPN to break free from the cable/satellite companies and associated contracts?  If they could go completely a la carte, offer mainly live games and successful programming like College Game Day, they could do massive layoffs, cut the unprofitable content, and get more in the black. 

I personally would be irked by that, because it means in football season I'd have to turn on YTTV for FOX, NBC, and CBS, and then also whatever form ESPN's revamped service was.  However, from their standpoint, perhaps it would be worth it.

I imagine they'd lose viewers in that model because a certain amount of viewers will only access them through tradition cable/satellite.  But with an eye on the future, I think that stuff is dead anyway.  Judging by my step-sons and everyone their age I know, generations behind mine aren't "watching TV" anymore.  It's stream-or-die, and they'll never have cable unless some massive shift happens.  A move like that might hurt in the short-term, but may pay off long term.  Not sure. 

What I think we've seen over the last 5(ish?) years is that it's not necessarily "stream or die". It was thought that cord-cutting would kill live TV. It didn't. Streaming services have cropped up that offer the same product as traditional linear cable/satellite TV with an alternative delivery method. So if you want live TV, you can pick cable/satellite. Or you can pick Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, Sling, etc. They're all "streaming" but they're live TV. 

The ESPN model was to get included in the default/base offering for live TV. Whether that's cable/satellite, or whether that's streaming live TV. This way they could get revenue from ALL live TV subscribers, not just the ones that watched. Perhaps not as much per subscriber, of course, but they've made the calculation that they're going to get more revenue total by sticking there. 

What it would take is for them to determine based on their business model that throwing away the base subscribers on those platforms for higher-value standalone subscribers would be worth it and increase revenue. Because you know the *INSTANT* that they offer a standalone streaming service, every cable/satellite/streaming live TV service will stop offering it in the base package and force anyone who wants to have it to pay for a "sports tier" to keep ESPN. The fear here is that fans who you *think* really value the content only value the content because it's "free" i.e. part of a base plan. And that's something we see here on this board. People saying "yeah, I'm not subscribing to Peacock on top of cable to watch 2-3 CFB games a season involving my team--I'll just watch the highlights." People bitch about games not being on ESPN, but may not care enough to subscribe to something else to follow it. Just as I did when the NFL playoff game was on Peacock. Did I want to watch it? Yes. Did I want to watch it ENOUGH to do that? No. 

I'm sure they're watching all the other standalone streaming services as well. The other fear might be that you have subscribers who are year-round subscribers right now, but might become half-year (or less) subscribers in the future because sports are seasonal and they may only be interested in one sport. If you're a hardcore football fan, for example, you don't need ESPN before Labor Day or after the Super Bowl. They don't want to see their business model go the way of some streaming services where a new season of a show drops, everyone who loves that show signs up for 1 month of the service to binge it, and then cancels until the next year when the next season drops.

That tipping point may yet come. But I think for now they've just determined that this is the safer route. 

specially when they are piggy backing on cable-internet.They don't have the overhead and still could cut their charges and make up for it on volume,then reputation

ESPN would be more financially viable if they went back to showing tractor pulls at 3am.

Agree on this in general, except for my 16yo daughter the exception, who hates sorting through all the various streaming apps and prefers a more traditional "cable" type viewing experience, where she can flip from channel to channel on a single consolidated guide. 

WORD - No doubt your kid is prolly more tech savy than the average over 50/60 crowd.And that's where a lot of us are at,is constant sorting doable?  - sure but we're tired of sham artists moving the goal posts.Higher price stabbing,changing progaming,getting worse reception,basically a total lack of customer care. As if somehow them even mailing the bill out is too much of a burden.I have been OTA Antenna coming up on 2 yrs in April took some tweaking but I'm very happy and impressed with some of the line ups. I Have about 15 ft of coaxial cable hooked to the rabbit ears and i seemingly always find reception spots.I get quite clearly the "old" program channels.
ME TV
Antenna TV
COZI,GRIT,CATCHY COMEDY,etc,etc,etc, in my best Yul Brynner voice
I get the old History Channel(Story Television)programing,plus my old sit coms favs:
Becker
Frazier
3rd Rock From the Sun
Home Improvement
Coach
Two and a Half Men
Spin City
70s Show......

Many just irked and won't be held hostage to the jerks,sooner or later the worm will turn based on ratings alone. If not I might go back to the 30s/40s listening to radio and reading books by whale oil lamps

I hear many folks claiming they have the worst drivers of any state, oddly enough.  Nobody claims to have the best.

And of course it's entirely an opinion unless based on some metric.

Florida drivers do suck. I think the reason is simple.

Half of the people who live here come from #'s 2-4 in the above list.

Also #'s 9, 11, 12, 18, 19 and 22.

Almost everyone in Texas is from #6, so that explains a lot.

Well.....Mexico, and then California.  

6 million new residents in the last 3 years, woohoo!