Your analysis is all wrong. Not all programming costs the same to make or license and not all people consume the same amount of programming. Your point basica

Your analysis is all wrong. Not all programming costs the same to make or license and not all people consume the same amount of programming. Your point basically boils down to "those people whose ESPN you are subsidizing are also subsidizing your programming that they might not watch." That's true, but the two don't necessarily cancel out. Sports programming costs a lot to license because there is high demand and there's basically a monopoly. Non-zero marginal costs would further favor a la carte pricing as it would reduce actual waste, but even with zero marginal cost there is still subsidization.