The need for broadcasters to push harder for a dual revenue stream was highlighted last year when ESPN outbid Fox by $100 million for rights to the Bowl Championship Series. Thanks to the amount of money cable and satellite operators pay ESPN each month (more than $4 per subscriber), ESPN already has a huge advantage over its rivals. Cable operators also pay ESPN additional license fees for its other networks, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, and even the broadband channel ESPN360.

Without retransmission-consent revenue, broadcasters would not be able to match ESPN’s bids for most sports rights. This is especially relevant over the next five years, as TV deals are expiring with the NHL (2011), NFL and MLB (2013), and Nascar and MLS (2014).

Broadcasters say they need retransmission dollars to stay competitive in the sports-rights marketplace. But they are quick to point out that even without the extra cash flow, they have some inherent advantages over their cable competitors.

The one most frequently mentioned is the breadth of their offerings, which reach 115 million homes, compared with ESPN’s 99 million.

That gap has been narrowing over the past decade and is expected to continue shrinking. But most leagues still place a high value on reaching those extra 16 million homes.

“I anticipate that in the next five years, the premier events that are currently on network television will remain on network television,” said Sean McManus, president of CBS News and CBS Sports. “I think the leagues still understand the value of having them on network television and how important it is to their viewership and their fans.”

NBC executives echoed McManus’ sentiment, saying that the bigger leagues make sure that they maintain a broadcast presence so they can reach more people.

“Yes, I think there are places where a network can compete and, in many cases, deliver significantly greater value than ESPN,” said NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer. “Leagues need broad exposure. They need exposure to the right audiences to grow their fan base, and they need exposure in the right time periods.”

Even ESPN executives acknowledge the power that broadcast television has on some of its rights holders. John Skipper, ESPN executive vice president of content, said the company would have had trouble signing deals with the NBA and World Cup if it didn’t have broadcast windows through ABC.

“We are not abandoning ABC,” Skipper said. “We are, right now, not looking to move other product off of ABC. We like having those windows.”

It’s not just the leagues that place a value on broadcasters’ reach. McManus predicted that regulators almost certainly would step in if some marquee sporting events, like the Super Bowl, were to migrate to cable.

“It’s a fine balance between taking advantage of the cable model, which has a dual revenue stream, but also protecting the network model, which still has great value for the biggest sporting events in America.”

But leagues need more than goodwill and immense reach. They want networks with deep pockets—ones that can afford to pay the most for their games.

McManus believes the TV deal CBS signed with the Southeastern Conference last summer provides a blueprint for how broadcasters can share TV packages with cable networks.

CBS paid an average of $55 million annually for a 15-year deal that includes a late Saturday-afternoon window for a game of CBS’s choice, one prime-time game, and two doubleheaders per year. ESPN paid $150 million per year for the rest of the conference’s rights.

“We found out in the SEC negotiation that there was room for ESPN and room for a really good network package,” McManus said. “There can be bigger and more valuable cable portions of a lot of these deals, but the network component is still a critical one for most leagues.”

But the key for broadcasters remains getting retransmission-consent payments for their local stations. In fact, most cable operators say it’s almost inevitable that they will have to make these payments—they’re just negotiating to keep the fees as low as possible.

“Against today’s model of an ad-supported-only broadcast network, sports rates are a real challenge,” Carey said at that New York conference last month.

“Sports are going to continue to be a critical part of our story. We’re going to create great content and create a business model that lets us continue to grow and expand.”