It seems to me that the "death of ESPN" is more evidence of the death of the cable TV model than the death of sports.
The biggest mistake the article made was conflating sport related spending with the housing bubble. The housing bubble blew because the last entrants into the ponzi were tapped out. The cost of sports is microscopic in comparison and very few people give up cable because they're completely and utterly tapped out. They just spend the $100 on something else. Probably a smartphone and some subscription services. Certainly the last entrant into the ponzi of paying a billion bucks for a team on the assumption you'll sell to a greater fool at two billion has not been reached, nor has the very last new sports fan been born yet.
The biggest oversight in articles of this type is no one wants to discuss bundling. The kind of business that forces all video subscribers to pay $30/mo for sports even if they're not sports fans, could, with just a couple clicks on a keyboard, change the bundle so all the cablemodem subscribers pay the same $30 extra for their cablemodem, but now it comes with free ESPN video or some kind of web access deal. There are, after all, only a handful of monopoly providers. So either pay $30 for ESPN, or disconnect yourself from the internet.
Trying to avoid paying for sports is like trying to avoid paying for organized crime. Or disorganized crime, for that matter. Unfortunately you can either pay up, or leave the geography and culture entirely. The government and corporations certainly are not going to help us because they are the organized crime in this analogy.
You still "pay for ESPN" in the sense that TWC prices low-end internet-only packages to be uncompetitive with cable+internet bundles, but if you opt for the internet-only package TWC keeps the money. This works out great for TWC but not so much for ESPN or sports fans used to subsidy.
They run multiple channels 24/7 and a ton of their content is studio analysis-type shows, most of which I find absolutely terrible. I'm sure they have reasons for how they select and utilize the talent they have, but aside from a few writers and commentators, I have a hard time watching or reading anything they produce.
I was hoping they'd eventually figure out a way to do more Grantland-produced television, where someone with some journalistic and creative taste, as well as more creative freedom could develop, but that obviously did not happen. Maybe Bill Simmons will be able to do that with HBO and finally create a legit competitor to ESPN's non-live sports programming.
Their 30 for 30 films are awesome (thanks to Bill Simmons though, we'll see if it continues).
I'm a huge football fan and while I still watch live games on ESPN and the major networks, I find most of my analysis and commentary online. At the moment a substantial percentage of that is from ESPN, but more and more I'm getting it from Reddit, sports-specific web sites like Pro Football Talk, and -- the channel most ready for the future -- NFL Network.