The CW Teams With ESPN & Roku In Streaming Partnerships
Deadline • • entertainment
Key Points:
- The CW has entered streaming partnerships with ESPN and Roku to expand its programming reach, offering 800 hours of annual sports content on ESPN’s app and next-day entertainment titles on the Roku Channel.
- These deals come amid The CW’s strategic shift under Nexstar’s majority ownership towards live sports programming, including college football, basketball, NASCAR, WWE NXT, and more, which are now a foundational part of the network’s content.
- The ESPN partnership addresses the lack of live sports on The CW’s own app by providing a sports-focused streaming outlet without launching a new direct-to-consumer product, with ad sales rights retained by The CW.
- The Roku deal aims to widen audience access to The CW’s entertainment programming and library content, leveraging Roku Channel’s large free streaming platform that reaches over 100 million households globally.
- Both partnerships involve revenue-sharing models and allow The CW to sell advertising on these platforms, with plans to transition to dynamic ad insertion on ESPN’s app after an initial linear ad pass-through phase.
