This isn't about Dish. It is about ESPN making ridiculous bids to be an exclusive broadcaster of certain sporting events. When ESPN bids this high, they aren't bidding with their money. They are bidding with our money because they have to raise rates. You can whine all you want about Dish being capable of taking it in the butt and making less money themselves, but the source isn't Dish's desire to be profitable enough to exist, but with ESPN making ridiculous bids.
I'm not competely disagreeing with you. The point I was trying to get across, though, is that ESPN may be making these bids because they feel they have to. In other words, if they didn't make the bids, they may feel someone else would, and diminish ESPN's brand and revenues substantially. We know that NBC Sports Channel, in it's bid to be the new ESPN, would love to have a touchstone product like Monday Night Football, or summer programming like major league baseball, to make them almost a "must carry" right alongside ESPN with good tier placement across the spectrum. The NHL gets them halfway, but they need another big product, and they are likely ready to overpay to do it. Plus, there are the usually other possibilities- TNT, TBS, USA. Also, some of these leagues if they don't get the bids they want may just shift the products to the networks they own.
So, it's not like ESPN is just saying out of the blue "We're going to pay MLB double" (or whatever). They likely feel like if they don't, someone else will, and they'll go down a road that leads towards irrelevance as a channel and fewer advertising dollars, and fewer dollars from the cable companies.