The CW is majorly changing its streaming strategy thanks to two new deals the broadcast network announced on Wednesday. Starting in the summer, all of The CW’s sporting events will be available to stream live on the ESPN app for viewers with the ESPN Unlimited subscription. As for the network’s scripted and unscripted content, new episodes will be available to stream on Roku the day after their premiere starting in the fall.
The ESPN deal means that more that 800 hours of live sports content will be available on the sports app. That includes live coverage of college football and men’s and women’s basketball from the ACC, Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences as well as the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, WWE NXT, PBA Bowling, PBR Bull Riding, AVP volleyball and the 2026 Arizona Bowl. The deal further cements The CW’s commitment to live sports. Just as CBS can stream its sports offerings on Paramount+ and NBC can stream on Peacock, fans can watch The CW’s events on ESPN.
“We were hunting for a streaming solution, and the thing that we knew was that the world doesn’t need another direct-to-consumer product,” Brad Schwartz, president of The CW, told TheWrap. “We decided our strategy was not going to be adding to that challenge for people and that we were going to partner with somebody to do it. If you’re going to find a partner for sports, the worldwide leader in sports is a pretty good one to go with.”
The news comes during this year’s upfront season. Now advertisers interested in partnering with The CW will be able to extend their reach to new audiences on digital platforms. The CW will be completely responsible for all sales of CW-broadcast events that will air on the ESPN app.
“It’ll be linear pass through year one for this upcoming season. Then we’ll quickly work with ESPN, get the technology in place and move to the AI so we can sell dynamic ad insertion for the marketplace,” Dan Lanzano, president of national advertising sales at Nexstar, told TheWrap. “The marketplace is shifting budgets in a big way to sports and streaming. What do we just do? We grew our portfolio to 800 hours of live sports, and now we have a streaming partner to extend our reach for our consumers as well as for our advertising partners. So it’s an amazing one-two punch that aligns with what the marketplace is looking for this upfront season.”
Though ESPN has previously partnered with sports organizations like the NFL, this is the first time the streaming service has partnered with a non-Disney-owned network in a major way. “As we continue to evolve ESPN’s direct-to-consumer experience, collaborations like this allow us to better serve fans by making more of the sports they love available in one place,” Rosalyn Durant, executive vice president of ESPN programming and acquisitions, said.
The network hasn’t just revitalized its streaming strategy for sports. Starting this fall, all of The CW’s entertainment programming will be available on The Roku Channel for next-day streaming. That includes the network’s upcoming “Private Eyes West Coast” starring Jason Priestly as well as unscripted shows like “Police 24/7” and game shows like “Scrabble” and “Trivial Pursuit.” New installments of WWE NXT will also be available to stream on The Roku Channel every Wednesday following their live Tuesday night broadcast on The CW.
As part of this new partnership, The CW hub on Roku will also feature over 800 hours of library content, including episodes of “Wild Cards,” “Penn & Teller: Fool Us,” “Children Ruin Everything” and “Good Cop / Bad Cop.” The CW and Roku previously collaborated together on the latter two series.
Schwartz likened the strategy of partnering with Roku to FX on Hulu, the cable network’s partnership with the streamer. There is now a designated hub for FX content on Hulu.
“We thought ‘How do we combine the best of broadcast with the best of streaming so that we can bring fans and advertiser of all of our content into both areas?’” Schwartz said. “You need a streaming partner for that. Of course, we have our CW app, which has been downloaded 110 million times and is still a great little product. But how can we make that front door bigger?”
After talking with several partners, Roku emerged as the best fit. “It’s access, reach, accessibility and the ability to further engage with our content within a platform that already has a built-in large-scale audience,” Lanzano said.
“This partnership is all about connecting great storytelling with the millions of viewers who are looking for it,” Lisa Holme, head of content at Roku Media, said.
