CHICAGO (AP) — Bob Orshak goes to all the top sports sites when he wants to see highlights of his favorite teams. He watches his beloved Boston Red Sox on Major League Baseball's popular At Bat application.

He is going on 10 years without cable, and he doesn't miss it one bit.

"All my friends are starting to do what I'm doing ... there's almost no reason to have cable anymore," said Orshak, a 37-year-old dog trainer who lives in Los Angeles and owns a pet care service.

While pay-TV bills continue to rise in a sputtering economy, it's difficult to say definitively whether more consumers are exploring life without cable and satellite packages — and if so, the reason why.

According to an August report by Sanford C. Bernstein, a Wall Street research firm, there was evidence of "cutting the cord" during the second quarter.

"The growth rate remains below the level of even anemic new household formation, suggesting that penetration is falling even as the Pay TV subscriber base is still growing," the report read. "And that, in turn, suggests that yes, there are homes that are cutting the cord. Whether they are doing so because of online video options (as the technology press would have it) or poverty/affordability (as we would argue) is unclear."

What is clear is that sports leagues and properties are paying close attention to online viewing habits.

NBC offered live video from the London Olympics on its website. Major League Baseball's new deal with ESPN combines rights for TV, radio, digital and international for the first time. The National Football Foundation just launched a new site that offers on-demand college football documentaries and a series highlighting historic games. There are all sorts of YouTube sports channels offering everything from soccer to Olympic highlights.

"If it's out there, you can find it," said Scott Stanley, 36, of Bedford, Va., who has gone without cable for 18 months and uses an ESPN app and the web for sports highlights. "I don't think I've ever heard about some sporting event and not been able to find video of it somewhere online."

Now Hulu is adding to its sports programming with "TCS 5th Quarter," a college football highlights show produced by Total College Sports, which is a partnership between PERFORM, a digital sports media business, and Silver Chalice Ventures, a company affiliated with the Chicago White Sox. The 22-minute show aired Saturday night for the first time, and it includes clips from the top games in the SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC.

"The plan really is, it's to be a little bit disruptive in the market," said Juan Delgado, the managing director of PERFORM Americas. "You've got guys like ESPN who have built really big audiences and great business models, but they're a little bit limited in what they can do on the web. You don't see a lot of SportsCenter making it onto ESPN.com because obviously the affiliates, you know, feel like that's one of the crown jewels and therefore they don't want it available to everybody. And because obviously they pay ESPN billions of dollars for their content on affiliate fees.

"So what we're looking at is can we create a disruptive model on one of the biggest video/TV portals in the U.S.?"

PERFORM has been distributing college football highlights through its ePlayer product since last season. The ePlayer platform can be found on most major newspaper sites throughout the U.S. and also includes clips from other major sports.

The 18-episode Hulu series that runs through Jan. 12 represents a departure for the company, which is publicly traded on the London stock exchange.

"This year, we wanted to do something different, and a bit bigger. ... We're now going for a full-fledged, TV-quality, full-production show," Delgado said.

Hulu has traditionally relied on its network partners for most of its content, but has been increasing its original programming of late. It had $420 million in revenue last year, and its U.S. subscription service has more than 2 million subscribers.

While fans have more options than ever to watch online, widespread live streaming of sporting events doesn't appear to be on the horizon. Delgado thinks live sports will remain a "kingpin" to cable distribution strategies, as evidenced by rising rights fees.

"Online ... it is going to be a video on-demand or catch-up or highlights playing field, rather than a live streaming or consumption of content, because most of those rights are gated within the networks and the platforms of their distributing arm," he said.

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Jay Cohen can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jcohenap