A key part of Roku’s sports strategy comes around sport-specific or league-specific zones. Beyond its overall Roku Sports Zone, the company (known for both smart TVs and connected-TV streaming players) has launched zones for everything from the NFL to MLB to the NBA, the Olympics, and more, with those zones providing scores and links to watch game and non-game content from the respective sports. And now, they’re launching their first zone for a specific women’s sports league, the National Women’s Soccer League, or NWSL.
Roku announced the launch of the new NWSL Zone Thursday morning, just ahead of the league’s season kickoff Friday. Here’s more on what they have planned, from a release:
Today, Roku announced the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Zone, a new destination in the Roku Sports experience. The NWSL Zone will showcase live and upcoming games, popular programming and more from the premier professional women’s soccer league. This is Roku’s first women’s league-branded zone, available starting today ahead of the season kickoff on Friday, March 14.
“With the popularity of women’s sports soaring, we’re focusing on amplifying the talent that makes it all happen,” said Joe Franzetta, Head of Sports at Roku. “Curating a dedicated zone for the NWSL is another step in our mission to champion female athletes, their record-breaking achievements, and their inspiring stories.”
“We’re excited to partner with Roku and leverage their extensive platform and sports discovery user experience to bring NWSL matches to more fans than ever,” said Julie Haddon, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, at NWSL. “This collaboration is an important step in making it even easier for our growing audience to engage with the league.”
The NWSL Zone will include re-airs of games, highlights, short-form clips, and more. It will also have links to watch games via the league’s domestic media partners of CBS Sports, ESPN, Prime Video, and Scripps Sports/ION, including free streaming of games through the ION app and the league’s own NWSL+ app. NWSL content will also be available through other Roku areas, including the Sports Zone, the Soccer Zone, and the Women’s Sports Zone.
This is just the latest part of the NWSL’s media growth under new deals signed in 2023 with those aforementioned domestic partners. And a zone like this is perhaps especially important for a league that has its media rights spread across four partners, and is something that’s also valuable for Roku to provide.
Providing where-to-watch information is a key strategy for Roku in general (and is something other companies, including ESPN, are increasingly targeting). And, around growing general interest in women’s sports, the company is also scaling up its women’s sports coverage with efforts like the Women’s Sports Zone, new weekly talk series Women’s Sports Now (with Suzy Shuster, Renee Montgomery, and Sarah Tiana), and the original A Radical Act: Renee Montgomery documentary on Montgomery and her trailblazing move to become a WNBA co-owner and executive. This fits in with that wider women’s sports focus for Roku, and represents a new frontier there with a zone for a specific women’s sports league.