It is true that Sony has lost out on renewing many key sporting event rights as well as not able to acquire other important rights... Let's wait n see if equation changes in the future.. Issue with zee paying high amount to star/disney for acquiring ICC Events TV rights is not that OTT will gain prominence in the future and TV as an entertainment medium would b left behind hence causing loss to zee .... Infact linear tv will continue to grow and hold strong for next 15 or 20 years while OTT will also expand its footprint but still not become a mass medium for accessing content.
Problem is that Non India Cricket Matches do not getting good ratings barring some key matches which r of interest hence be it on TV or OTT ad revenues remain quite less for such matches. This maybe one of the reasons why star/disney decided to offload the TV Rights of next cycle of ICC events but retained digital rights as it would help cater to niche audience as well as help in boosting content on disney+hotstar keeping in view growth in OTT sector which is expected in coming years.
In my opinion sony needs to review its content strategy in not only sports but other genres too as it is rather weak or does not have presence in many genres. Zee - Sony merger can hugely help in redrawing the strategy & define key areas where both the broadcasters need to focus on. If sony-zee fails to acquire major sporting events then it should exit sports genre and put its resources in strengthening other areas where it has strong foothold or require the push. Zee had earlier exit sports channel business bcoz of same reason.
Actually sports as a genre is quite cost intensive & requires lot of investment, more so broadcasters are able to get return to investment or earn profit at a very later stage that too when they have rights of some events will garner high viewership.... A channel can also somehow invest in low key sporting events and run the channel but it does not get desired audience hence is not quite productive. These days even rights of major football, tennis , other events like WWE, Olympics / Commonwealth Games etc. & even cricket rights of home matches of different countries too cost quite a lot but revenue earned from it is quite small as compared to IPL, India Cricket (except when Indian Cricket Team tours these nations).
Big advantage that sports channels bring to a broadcaster is to make its bouquets attractive & helps in delivering good subscription numbers. It also immensely helps for better reach of all its channels as operators cannot ignore signing agreement with respective broadcasters or not updating RIO on regular intervals to bring onboard new channels
