You can sit here and try to say only "diehards" will miss Cousy, and maybe you are right. But before this year, the Celtics were a profitable franchise despite consistently landing the the NBA's basement. That's because of diehard fans.
Go ask Miami how much money they make since they were a team devoted to casual fans.
Die hards keep teams, and the businesses like CSN that survive off them, strong in the lean times. And the lean times are inevitable. It's like they say in politics, you can bring in new votes but never alienate your "base". Those are the ones you have to depend on.
CSN, forget my personal feelings on this. It was a bad business decision. Suckers.