Women’s sports are here to stay. Case in point: The women’s NCAA basketball tournament hours streamed grew by over 80% from the prior year on Roku while men’s remained flat.¹
As the leading TV streaming platform in nearly half of US broadband homes, Roku has the privilege of seeing the growth in viewership firsthand on our platform.
Women's sports have gained significant momentum over the past few years, with greater ratings, viewership, and coverage. That's why Roku launched a Women's Sports Zone last year—to help fans easily find their favorite women's sports-related content in soccer, golf, and more.
Kristina Shepard, VP of global advertising sales and partnerships at Roku, discussed inclusion in women’s sports, streaming and advertising this week at the ANA/SeeHer Gender Equality Conference. Roku supports SeeHer’s mission to boost the representation and accurate portrayal of women in media and marketing, and we are committed to diversity and gender equality across the entire streamer's journey.
Here's a recap of key themes discussed during Kristina's session about the growing prominence of women's sports.
Women are actively engaged in the sports conversation
Female households stream more on Roku than the average user and these households are more likely to search for titles with strong female leads.² Their interest increasingly extends to sports, with sports searches growing 26% year over year (YoY) among female households.³
Overall, searches for women's sports on our platform are at an all-time high.⁴ That can’t be attributed solely to Taylor Swift, though the streaming tune-in rate for The Big Game did double YoY among her fans.
The acceleration in viewership for women’s basketball is hard to ignore, searches for women's basketball skyrocketed 754% on Roku compared to last year.⁵ Women's NCAA Basketball Tournament viewing hours on Roku increased more than 80% compared to men’s, which remained flat.⁶ This trend extended across both streaming and linear. Younger Women's NCAA Basketball Tournament audiences, ages 18-34, grew by 30% on linear TV And it’s not just women driving the shift; tune-in from males 18-34 also grew by 32% demonstrating that men are a driver in the accelerating demand for women’s sports to become mainstream.⁷
We see a similar trend for the WNBA. This past season linear TV reach each month on Roku was an average of 31% higher than in 2022.⁸ We expect this season to continue to grow, especially coming off the heels of the WNBA draft that nearly tripled traditional TV household viewership since the year prior.⁹
Streamers are looking for women's sports
Exactly a year ago we announced the launch of Roku's Women's Sports Zone on the SeeHer stage.
We created the Women’s Sports Zone to solve a key challenge: Nearly a fifth of US sports fans can't easily access live women's sports, according to Nielsen.¹⁰ This zone is curated based on user preferences to help Roku users find live games and complementary programming such as female-focused documentaries and movies from supporting channels across Roku. Streaming hours for the 2024 tournament coming from Roku's Sports Zone and Women’s Sports Zone for the NCAA Women’s College Basketball tournament soared a whopping 533% YoY.¹¹
We invite brands into the experience to solve a consumer need while positioning themselves alongside the top leagues in sports.
What’s next for Zones? We will be hosting an Olympics Zone on the Roku platform in partnership with NBCU, which is expecting to dedicate more than half of its Olympic primetime coverage to women’s sports.¹² We can’t wait to help our streamers discover, watch, and celebrate the incredible female athletes on Team USA and around the world.
How brands can elevate women's sports
In addition to sponsoring the Women’s Sports Zone, brands can partner with Roku to tell great stories about women in sports, co-creating or sponsoring original content that truly raises the bar for inclusive storytelling.
For instance, we have partnered extensively with Ally Bank, which has pledged to spend half of its sports media budget on women’s sports in honor of the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Ally Bank’s mission extends to non-sports content as well. We put Ally on our home screen, the lead-in to every streamer’s journey, when we created "Side Hustlers," an inspiring series that follows successful investors helping young women turn their side hustles into main hustles.
Brands can support women's sports and help streamers discover new ones by sponsoring content on The Roku Channel, such as the Roku Women’s Sports Minute. This hosted series highlights inspiring and unexpected women’s sports stories, trivia, and can include in-content overlays so viewers can set reminders to tune-in to their favorite women’s sporting events.
Roku is creating a better TV experience for women
We're excited to be aligned with SeeHer's mission to accurately portray women in marketing, advertising, media, and entertainment.
As the lead-in to everything happening in TV streaming, we want every streamer to feel right at home the moment they enter the Roku Experience. That means elevating content that reflects and celebrates the diversity of our audience.
Subscribe to our newsletter to receive more updates from Roku Advertising.
¹ Roku Internal Data, 2024
² Roku internal data, 2023 | Female household is a household that includes 1 or more females
³ Roku Internal Data, April 2024
⁴ Roku Internal Data, Jul 2021 - Apr 2024
⁵ Roku Internal Data, 2024 | Compared to January-April, 2023
⁶ Roku Internal Data, 2024
⁷ Roku Internal Data, 2024
⁸ Roku Internal Data, 2023
⁹ Roku Internal Data, 2024
¹¹ Roku Internal Data, 2024
