Roku launches its own sports channel next week

The Roku Channel has just confirmed that its own sports channel will be available to watch starting August 12. The announcement comes just a few days after Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery revealed the price of their “ultimate sports streaming service,” Venu Sports.

However, unlike Venu Sports which costs $42.99 per month at launch, the upcoming Roku Sports Channel will be ad-supported, so customers won’t have to pay anything to watch its content. As per Roku’s statement, its sports channel will feature a wide range of popular sports programming that Roku owns and licenses.

For example, Roku fans will be able to watch live Major League Baseball games with MLB Sunday Leadoff, Emmy-nominated talk show “The Rich Eisen Show,” GMFB: Overtime,” live races from Formula E, and sports-themed Roku Originals produced with iconic leagues in professional sports, including “NFL Draft: The Pick Is In,” “WWE: Next Gen,” and “Fight Inc: Inside the UFC.”

But wait, there’s more! The new Roku sports channel will also include exclusive partner content such as classic boxing matches from Top Rank, combat sports from Swerve Sports, and poker tournaments from PokerGO featuring the game’s most iconic players.

If you think the sports content is a bit too thin in comparison with Venu Sport, you’re not wrong. But let’s not forget that this is available for free. On top of that, Roku says that it will continue to refresh and expand the sports channel with new and upcoming exclusive programming, including NBA G-League games and the Roku Original WNBA documentary “Renee Montgomery: A Radical Act.”

The upcoming Roku Sports Channel will be available to watch on Roku devices or TVs, online and through the Roku app on iOS and Android devices, Amazon Fire TVs, Samsung TVs and Google TVs, as well as other Android TV OS devices.