[CydeWeys]

It turns out that my interest in sports did not exceed my hatred of cable companies. I canceled cable and don't watch nearly as much live sport coverage as I used to. Every so often I'll catch something in a bar or go to a friend's place to watch the Super Bowl, and that's it.

Point being, I don't think live sports is enough for cable to survive on. Once that's all that cable is good for, I think an increasing number of people will simply give up on sports, especially at $100+/month.

[soylentcola]

At least where I live, the cable companies are the only real option for broadband internet access so we're already paying Comcast for something. And once you are paying for internet access, cable TV is typically a lot less than $100/mo. The only reason we still have it is because internet access is $70/mo while internet plus cable (major channels in HD, minor ones in SD), plus HBO (main HBO channel in HD, secondary HBO channels in SD) costs $100/mo with their tuner/dvr rental.

So for a lot of people, they don't need to be worth $100+/month but they do need to be worth $30-ish per month. Whether they are is debatable but if anyone in your house still likes to "flip" channels and watch the latest cable/network TV, it's not always a done deal. If it were up to me, I'd ditch the cable TV because I hardly watch it and would spend less just renting "season passes" to the handful of shows I do.