It's already happened in America. "Cord cutting" has become a popular phrase as more and more people leave cable tv. American sports offer their product direct to consumers via the Internet all over the world. The likes of ESPN get a few games a week.
It's younger consumers doing the cord cutting too. While it's the older ones who cling to the cable tv model.
Seems like a pretty massive example to me. It's strange to me that EPL haven't gone the same way, they have the international reach to be able to do so as a supplement to also selling certain games to local TV networks.
again I don't think this is going to happen in the NZ market for local mainstream sports as the market size isn't there - entirely different in the US and different for overseas international sport like EPL - although to answer your question would EPL get 3 million a year from direct subscribers in NZ? if not then why bother from their point of view.