Not sure much of a presence ESPN has over the pond but here stateside they decided to get into the high end cost market as well as political arena.
Disney has them for sale and it will be much cheaper than the valuation was just a year or two ago. There is a finite limit on how much you can bend people over. That limit is reached much quicker when you have no fans in the stands and all of the development leagues are either not playing or shut down. The differences between football, baseball, basketball and throwball are not as much as some might think.
The biggest issue is behavior change. quite a few people have stopped dedicating all or part of their off days to watch sports. Once that happens it's not an automatic that they will come back.
I believe there is an old saying "don't kill the golden goose". Football is not immune to that.