Overview
- The CW announced Wednesday that all CW Sports will stream on ESPN Unlimited this summer, with entertainment episodes arriving on The Roku Channel the day after broadcast starting this fall.
- ESPN Unlimited becomes the exclusive streaming home for roughly 800 hours of CW live events, including ACC, Pac-12 and Mountain West games plus NASCAR’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and WWE NXT.
- The CW will handle advertising for its games on ESPN, using a linear pass-through this season before switching to dynamic ad insertion after the tech is in place.
- Roku will feature a CW hub with next-day episodes and about 800 hours of library series, with new WWE NXT episodes posting on Wednesdays after their live Tuesday run on The CW.
- Executives framed the deals as aggregation over launching a new app, highlighting ESPN’s push to host third-party sports and The CW’s bid for broader reach through established platforms.