Roku is expanding on its sports tab to include a breakout section specifically for women’s sports. The category works the same as the rest of the sports section but is set up to highlight things like women’s basketball, soccer, and LPGA events. Sports like swimming, track and field and tennis in general have always lumped everybody together because of the nature of the events themselves. But the move to highlight the growing popularity of sports like women’s basketball at the NCAA level, which saw its best ratings ever in the 2022-2023 season culminating with a highly rated NCAA Championship game, put women’s sports in a place that athletes have been wanting for decades.
The popularity and demand for women’s sports is greater than ever, and at Roku, we continue to commit to elevating this important programming for our customers,” said Kelli Raftery, Roku’s Vice President, Global Communications. “At a time when it is harder than ever to find what you want to watch, our new Women’s Sports Zone makes it easier for fans to get to the content they love, and it arrives just in time for the tip-off of the WNBA season this Friday.”
The Roku Sports Women’s sports section also includes a selection of movies and documentaries that tell true and fictional stories featuring female athletes.
How to find the new Women’s Sports category
- Scroll down to Sports on the Home Screen Menu and click to the Women’s Sports Zone in the “Browse by Sport” row.
- Search for “women’s sports” or associated words like a team or league name in Roku Search or using Roku Voice.
- Head to the Sports row in the Roku Mobile App and scroll to Women’s Sports Zone.
Like the rest of the selections in the sports section of Roku, the listings are based on which apps are participating in the portal. For instance, users will see listings for events on Sling TV and DirecTV Stream, but not listing that are also on YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV. This is because even if a game is taking place on ESPN which is supported by all of the services, Hulu and YouTube are not part of the Roku program. Users of those services though can infer that anything on a national sports network is also available on their service, it just won’t be deep linked to it.
Participating apps include Paramount+, Fubo, Sling TV, and DirecTV Stream.
