Roku recently took over streaming rights to MLB’s Sunday morning baseball package from Peacock for $30 million over the next three seasons. Because Roku is a hardware company and clearing house for all streaming viewership, the company’s valuation of those baseball broadcast rights is unique.
In an interview on the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast released Friday, Roku Media president Charlie Collier discussed why the company bought MLB rights and how it fits into the company’s broader strategy.
“From a sports perspective, we’re making it easier for the fan to find the sports that they love. So if you look at the baseball deal, we are in many ways, we say at Roku, we’re the lead-in to all of television … so it’s very natural for us to have the first games every Sunday that lead into what is obviously a huge sporting day,” Collier explained. “So those games are important to us, but also important is that we give the fans everything you’d want.”
Roku houses free, ad-supported channels for leagues like the NFL and NBA while also now broadcasting baseball games itself. Roku also gives fans access to non-sports platforms like Hulu or movie rental services. In an era in which games, shows, movies and other content is spread thin across numerous platforms, Roku aims to correct that issue by merging it all on one service or device.
“You want the games, you want to track your team throughout the week, you want to be able to find which service your game is on easily, and Roku makes all of that possible,” Collier added.
In this way, the Roku MLB deal is about bringing people to the service but also about setting the habit of tuning into a specific thing to kick off each Sunday with the idea that you will stick around and consume more.
“What we can do is make it really simple for you to find the television and sports that you’re passionate about,” Collier said. “[In the past] you could tell what a network valued in terms of next hopeful hit if they put it behind the biggest lead-ins in television. With fragmentation, those lead-ins are all but gone, and I believe what’s replacing it is (Roku).”
This is similar to how YouTube sees itself in the modern media environment. Viewers may struggle to track down everything they want to watch or know how to work each service. Roku combines it into one straightforward package and makes money from consumers, distributors, creators and more.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.