ESPN’s ability to bid for expensive sports rights may be threatened if pay television customers finally get a chance to subscribe to only the networks they want to watch.

A recent consumer survey conducted by Civic Science found 56% overall would remove ESPN/ESPN2, with 60% of female respondents and 49% of male respondents thrilled to drop ESPN to save $8 a month on their cable bill.

Richard Greenfield at BTIG Research has tried in vain to warn ESPN parent company Disney it may be on borrowed time.

“We continue to believe ESPN is in serious trouble as they spent far too heavily on long-term sports rights contracts, given the deteriorating state of the multichannel video bundle and accelerating shift of TV ad dollars to mobile,” Greenfield wrote in a note to investors. “Simply put, ESPN has been the largest beneficiary of the ‘BIG’ cable bundle for decades and is now dramatically overearning, with consumers the biggest losers.”

No basic cable network costs consumers more than ESPN, with $5-9 dollars of every cable TV bill paying for ESPN and its sister sports networks, whether customers watch or not. Each year, ESPN rakes in almost $9 billion from American households and advertisers, much of it used to bid for high-profile sporting events which used to appear exclusively on major broadcast networks. With billions on hand from pay television customers, many who also pay surcharges for sports programming and broadcast/over the air stations, sports teams and their owners are flush with cash. Some cable companies have even resorted to launching expensive cable networks in association with team owners just to secure viewing rights as competitors continue to bid up the price.

ESPN’s business model depends on making every cable customer pay for ESPN, so its contracts prohibit cable operators and satellite providers from placing the network on an added-cost tier.But as new online video providers launch, many are trying to omit expensive sports programming to give customers cheaper options. If consumers choose those providers, expensive cable networks are in big trouble.

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Greenfield has tangled with Bob Iger, Disney’s chairman and CEO about the risks to ESPN’s future business model in the recent past. Iger has taken the cord cutting threat in stride, claiming ESPN is even prepared to start selling its networks individually, direct to consumers. Greenfield believes Iger is bluffing.

“As soon as ESPN launches a direct-to-consumer offering, it will remove the ‘protection’ they receive from cable/satellite distributors who guarantee ESPN a certain level of penetration,” Greenfield writes. “So no matter what price point ESPN/ESPN2 launch to consumers, it enables their legacy distributors such as Comcast to offer far more robust channel packages without ESPN.”

In an open market where customers get to decide on the channels they pay to receive, more than half of the country would not pay for ESPN, creating an enormous revenue hit for the network. Without adequate funds to compete in sports programming rights auctions, ESPN would likely lose access to many sporting events, further reducing revenue received from advertisers as ratings dropped. To make up for those subscriber losses, ESPN might have to charge consumers up to $30 a month for a Netflix-like ESPN offering. Civic Science asked how many would pay $20 a month for ESPN and found only 6% of survey respondents willing. In contrast, about 80 percent of Comcast customers now take ESPN, but not because they have a choice.

Cord-cutting may already be taking a toll on ESPN’s bank account. Those dispensing with a cable television package in favor of Hulu, Amazon, or Netflix may be partly to blame for ESPN’s decision to layoff 300 employees last fall.

“The math for a direct-to-consumer offering for a basic cable network does not work, especially for channel(s) with very high monthly fees embedded within the current MVPD bundle,” said Greenfield. “Disney cannot take ESPN direct-to-consumer and they know it, whether they admit that publicly or not. Furthermore, if the multichannel video bundle frays faster than expected and the TV ad market continues to weaken, ESPN’s future growth prospects are dim, at best.”