Talks with potential partners and investors have touched on several roles ESPN can play in the fragmented streaming industry, from carrying local broadcasts for pro sports teams to serving as an industrywide hub to stream any live game, people familiar with the discussions say.

On another track, ESPN is working to make a stand-alone version of its flagship TV channel available to cord-cutters in two to three years, or once its reach in the cable-TV world falls below 50 million households, people familiar with the plans say.

Major League Baseball has had early talks with ESPN about having the network stream local baseball games in certain markets, people familiar with the matter said. The bankruptcy of the largest local sports TV player, Diamond Sports Group, has led the league to explore new options for delivering games to consumers.

ESPN could offer those baseball games as an add-on to its $9.99-a-month ESPN+ service, but it isn’t interested in paying a big fee for the media rights, as TV broadcasters have done. ESPN sees the potential for similar arrangements with other pro sports leagues.

Bob Iger, CEO of ESPN-parent Disney, announced last month that the sports network was seeking a strategic partner and was open to selling an equity stake. The network, which is led by ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, has talked to other leagues, including the National Basketball Association, National Football League and the National Hockey League.

Media executives say big tech players from Amazon to Google to Apple also would have a lot to offer in helping ESPN reach a big audience and sign up subscribers. ESPN could tie up with more than one strategic partner, people close to the discussions said.

The search for a partner underscores how cord-cutting is upending the sports-media landscape and pushing ESPN to plot a future in streaming. The network has been one of the biggest attractions of the traditional cable-TV bundle, and has delivered big profits for Disney. But its grip is loosening as more people cancel their cable subscriptions and the costs of sports rights rise. In Disney’s most recent quarter, operating income from the TV segment that includes ESPN fell by 35%.

Ed Desser, president of sports-media consulting firm Desser Sports Media and a former senior NBA media executive, said ESPN, in looking for a strategic partner, needs to consider who can help draw in younger viewers and cord-cutters. “That’s the missing link that is important for Disney and ESPN to capture because they have either left the ecosystem or were never part of it,” Desser said.

ESPN isn’t alone in exploring a path for sports in the streaming world. Warner Bros. Discovery said Thursday it is investigating ways to integrate its sports properties into streaming offerings.

ESPN+ is a direct-to-consumer streaming service that carries some live sporting events, as well as scripted and unscripted programs. It doesn’t offer access to the ESPN channel itself, including high-value NBA and NFL telecasts that are only available with a pay-TV subscription.

ESPN is planning to offer a more robust service to bring the network’s full suite of programming to the legion of cord-cutters who don’t sign up for cable, an effort The Wall Street Journal reported was internally code-named “Flagship.” The company will continue to offer the ESPN TV channel after that streaming service launches.

The network hasn’t announced a date for the Flagship launch but will likely feel urgency to act when the number of cable and satellite-TV households that ESPN reaches falls below 50 million, as more people cut the cord. Some 71 million households now have access to ESPN via traditional cable packages or digital distributors like YouTube TV.

When it launches, the Flagship streaming service would carry a premium price—media executives say it could easily reach $30 a month, depending on a number of factors. ESPN is considering keeping ESPN+ in the market so consumers who can do without the full live-sports menu would still have a lower-priced option.

In the shorter term, ESPN is trying to create a tool in its app to let consumers search for and stream all major sports events. For many people, especially cable cord-cutters, figuring out where to watch their favorite teams has become a headache, with leagues parceling out streaming rights to companies like Amazon, Apple and Google while offering their own streaming packages with a variety of restrictions.

CNBC earlier reported on plans to create the live-sports hub and some details of ESPN’s talks with leagues as potential strategic partners.

Creating the new live-sports hub, which is internally dubbed “Marketplace,” requires striking deals with owners of sports rights—from leagues to rival streaming services and tech giants—so that ESPN can link out to their apps. ESPN would make money from those arrangements through a share of revenue or a fee when users sign up to one of its rivals’ services through the ESPN platform, people familiar with the discussions said. The company hopes to complete work on the hub in as soon as a year.

As strategic partners, leagues could supply content for ESPN’s various streaming initiatives. That could create a challenge for leagues with their other media partners, who may want assurances that they are being treated fairly.

ESPN is in the early stages of discussions with the NBA to renew their media partnership, which gives the network rights to many regular season and playoff games, with the finals on Disney’s ABC. The strategic-partnership talks have intersected with that dialogue, people familiar with the talks said.

MLB is trying to sort out a mess in the local sports-broadcasting business. Diamond, whose Bally Sports-branded TV networks pay pro baseball, basketball and hockey teams for the right to broadcast many of their games in local markets, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March, weighed down by about $8 billion in debt. MLB’s talks with ESPN signal the league is exploring new options to distribute games.

Big tech and telecom companies would bring a different dimension as strategic partners, media executives said, using their vast reach to provide a distribution boost for any new products ESPN brings to the market.

“They have the footprint, the skill sets and they have money,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media, which specializes in digital-media investments. Miller is a former executive at Wall Street Journal parent News Corp.

Amazon already has a business, Amazon Channels, that serves as a hub for streaming services from competitors, as does Google through its YouTube Primetime Channels. Verizon operates a subscription-management platform called +play that sells streaming service subscriptions and offers discounts on some bundles.

—Amol Sharma and Sarah Krouse contributed to this article.

Write to Jessica Toonkel at jessica.toonkel@wsj.com and Isabella Simonetti at isabella.simonetti@wsj.com