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As the U.S. Women’s National Team begins its quest tonight for a third World Cup title in a row, Roku is making it easier for fans to watch all 64 tournament games.
In May, the company launched Women’s Sports Zone, a platform that’s designed to help viewers easily discover live and upcoming women’s sports events, and now Apartments.com is the first brand sponsor coming on board.
“We’re excited to be the key sponsor of the Roku Women’s Sports Zone this summer, just in time for the highly anticipated women’s soccer event,” Tommy Friend, brand marketing director at Apartments.com, said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with Roku and supporting the rising popularity of women’s sports programming.”
Women’s Sports Zone launched at a time of unprecedented demand for women’s sports, with global governing body FIFA expecting 2 billion people worldwide to tune into the tournament.
Regarding the user experience, a clickable home screen banner unit, presented by a brand, brings users directly to a microsite that promotes game content related to women’s sports, with opportunities for branded content as well. Fans can also access it directly from the left-hand navigation tool.
“It’s a great thing for advertisers to surround themselves, whether that’s because they want to help solve a problem, or because they specifically want to align themselves contextually with women’s sports,” Katina Papas Wachter, Roku’s head of ad revenue strategy at The Roku Channel, told Adweek.
Roku first debuted Sports Zone in the fall with the intention of making it easier for viewers to find sports outside of mainstream leagues. The platform quickly realized fans had strong demand specifically for women’s sports after a 2022 NRG report found 30% of sports fans are watching more women’s sports than they used to and 85% noted the importance for women’s sports to continue growing in popularity.
“We saw quickly based on the numbers how much of a need that actually filled, and quickly after, launched women’s sports as well to put a specific spotlight on women’s sports holistically, and making sure there were ways for brands to surround the zone itself,” Wachter said.
After the initial marketing kickoff, Roku worked to ensure the zone still surfaced sports to users that would be interested in the content and then particularly highlighted it during meaningful moments like the World Cup.
“In the summer it will be more soccer-related. Later in the fall, it will highlight the LPGA or the WNBA seasons, and then eventually we want to make sure that we bring lesser-known leagues and lesser-known talent to users,” Wachter added.
A brand (new) opportunity
Roku’s Women’s Sports Zone has other opportunities for brands outside of the home screen and presenting offerings, which Wachter expects to play a role in the upfront.
Degree signed on as a sponsor of the Live Event Playlist product, which acts as a streaming guide for consumers and helps them get into the right apps during the games.
Within the microsite, the Roku Brand Studio can create custom content that connects a sports moment to a brand’s messaging.
“We’re also using [Women’s Sports Zone] as another thing to make a brand’s media plan custom throughout the upfront and into next year,” said Wachter. “It’s been exciting to see how lean-forward brands are in highlighting this problem and making it part of their upfront strategy to help solve it for streamers.”
