SVG Sit-Down: Roku's Head of Sports Joe Franzetta Calls New Roku Sports Channel A Natural Progression of Our Sports Strategy

SVG Sit-Down: Roku's Head of Sports Joe Franzetta Calls New Roku Sports Channel A Natural Progression of Our Sports Strategy The 24/7 FAST channel debuted on August 12 By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Thursday, August 15, 2024 - 10:55 am

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The burgeoning space of FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) channels has another new player. Earlier this week, Roku debuted its new 24/7 channel, Roku Sports Channel.

The channel is a curated collection of live sports events and original content series owned by the media company, including a weekly live Major League Baseball game as part of MLB Sunday Leadoff and live Formula E races.

Among the content initially appearing on the channel are live shows like The Rich Eisen Show and GMFB: Overtime, as well as sports-themed Roku Originals like NFL Draft: The Pick Is In, WWE: Next Gen, and Fight Inc: Inside the UFC. Exclusive partner content, from the likes of Top Rank Boxing and PokerGO will also be slotted into the programming lineup.

SVG sat down with Joe Franzetta, Head of Sports at Roku to discuss the decision to package and launch this channel and what he thinks it means for the future of Roku as a sports media player.

At an interesting time in sports media where streaming services are on the rise but so are linear -style products like FAST channels why was the concept of a 24-7 live channel something Roku wished to pursue?

The Roku Channel is a leader in the FAST space and sports is a very popular content category. As Roku gains more sports rights and licensing, we saw an opportunity to provide our audiences with a curated experience where they can enjoy free sports content 24/7 and right within the Live TV Channel Guide. We see this is a very natural progression of our sports strategy.

What are your personal early metrics for success?

Success to me is growing awareness of Roku Sports Channel and the individual programs within it. Seeing viewers returning to watch the channel and our audience growing over time. And featuring programming lead-ins that complement other programming and leads to increased viewership.

What has your reaction been to the first season (so far) of Sunday Leadoff on Roku? How have your production partners ensured those games are produced at a high quality?

The partnership with MLB is going well and we have expanded the reach of the Sunday games to our millions of users for free each week. Production value looks great as there is a pre + post-game broadcast, and clips/highlights of every single game. Each week we see great commentary on social media about how much baseball fans love that the games are for free. Games are produced by MLB so we are confident of and happy with the production quality, which includes our brand being seamlessly integrated into the production.

In what ways, if any, do you expect the presence of the Roku Sports Network to catalyze further live rights acquisitions and production of original programming across Roku?

As the leading streaming platform and knowing the large audiences sporting events draw in, sports is a major priority for us. And we believe all sports will be streamed. The market clearly shows that sports rights are migrating to streaming services and fragmenting further and we want to be the platform that provides a solution for sports fan's pain points. We are open to any opportunity that will help our users watch their go-to games on our platform with ease.

Available to stream for free, Roku Sports Channel is available on Roku devices or TVs, TheRokuChannel.com, and through the Roku app on iOS and Android devices, Amazon Fire TVs, Samsung TVs and Google TVs, and other Android TV OS devices. Roku Sports Channel is available on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Streamers can access it through The Roku Channel's Live TV Guide.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2024/08/15/svg-sit-down-rokus-head-of-spor...
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