ESPN repelled a media universe final week when it announced estimable layoffs. That a pierce came on a heels of a integrate of eye-popping deals usually underscored a cutthroat conflict between networks scrabbling for live-sports rights.

But even as Fox Sports 1 and NBC Sports Network enter a ring, one fact remains: There aren’t many some-more deals to be had. With a difference of a NBA, many sports-rights contracts for a vital properties are sealed down until after a start of a subsequent decade.

Which might explain because ESPN spent so large recently. The Walt Disney Co. network only inked a $825 million, 11-year understanding to put a U.S. Open tennis tourney wholly on cable, finale CBS’s 46-year attribute with a Open. Two years ago, ESPN snatched Wimbledon from NBC after 43 years with a 12-year understanding value $500 million.

ESPN also non-stop a wallet to launch a SEC Network, a 24-7 channel clinging to a premier discussion in increasingly-hot college football (it didn’t divulge terms). Only dual years ago, it announced a $300 million, 20-year understanding to emanate a Longhorn Network with a University of Texas. Then there’s a $470 million-a-year understanding struck in late 2012 for a long-demanded college-football playoffs.

There’s a flipside to such spending. ESPN’s preference to lay off 300 to 400 staffers, a network’s initial mass cutbacks given 2009, was driven by an obligatory need to condense costs. Compared with other sports-media companies, that run most leaner, ESPN has copiousness of employees—over 6,000 worldwide, pronounced James Andrew Miller, co-author of a book “Those Guys Have All a Fun: Inside a World of ESPN.”

The large esteem on a setting is a NBA. The league’s inhabitant TV deals with ESPN and Turner Sports’ TNT end after a 2015-2016 season.

Fox Sports owner David Hill has done no skeleton about wanting a NBA. “Will we be in a position to bid on a NBA TV rights commencement with a 2016 season? Absolutely,” Mr. Hill told Broadcasting Cable in April. “As TV rights come adult for bid from opposite college and veteran leagues, we will be opportunistic and we will bid on them.” 

But save a NBA, there are only not that many inhabitant sports packages left to buy—which eventually drives adult prices for internal sports.