North America's National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) has brought in free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service Roku as a new domestic media partner, replacing the Victory+ streaming service (which had defaulted on owed payments).
The 16-team NWSL – which counts major sports agency IMG as its partner for media rights sales – has brought Roku in to cover its package of Sunday evening (local time) matches, starting on August 30.
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Roku (in the process of being taken over by Fox Corp) will air eight Sunday night games between now and the end of the ongoing 2026 NWSL campaign, and is then set to show 25 games over the course of next season. The first game to be covered this weekend will see Seattle Reign take on Houston Dash.
Victory+ had held rights to these same Sunday games, only to be forced to end that agreement in late July, after missing payments owed to the league.
Rachel Epstein, chief marketing officer at the NWSL, said: "As we continue to grow the NWSL's audience, we're focused on making it as easy as possible for fans to find and watch our matches wherever they are.
"Roku's tremendous scale and accessibility make them an exciting partner as we bring more NWSL matches to more viewers and continue building consistent destinations for fans to engage with our league."
This technically counts as the expansion of an existing tie-up – in 2025, Roku launched an 'NWSL Zone' as part of their Sports package. The hub provided fans with the opportunity to watch both live matches, as well as game highlights and other short-form NWSL clips.
When announcing the termination of the Victory+ rights deal, late last month, the NWSL initially said that – as a short-term solution – all league matches that had been scheduled to be shown on that platform would instead go live on the in-house NWSL+ streaming service.
Victory+ and the NWSL had only struck a two-year rights deal last September, with Victory+ becoming the league's fifth domestic media rights partner in the process, and securing – at that point – 57 live games per season.
The other US broadcasters of the women's league are ESPN, CBS, Amazon, and Scripps.
The 2026 NWSL regular season began in early March and runs through November 1.
Joe Franzetta, Roku's head of sports, added: "We're thrilled to be elevating our partnership with NWSL to include this exclusive package of Sunday night matches, leading into and during what will be a watershed year for women's soccer. As sports fandom is continuing to grow alongside streaming access to sports, our audience reach will bring the NWSL matches to more than half of US streaming households."
The Fox Corp-Roku deal, unveiled in mid-June, will put The Roku Channel offering under the same umbrella as Tubi, Fox's own streaming platform that it bought in 2019 (and which it launched an OTT sports platform for in 2021).
Both parties have said the deal will create the third-largest operator across TV in terms of viewing share, and that it is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
The deal involves Fox acquiring Roku – which runs across the Americas, Europe, and Australia – for $160 per share, through "a combination of cash and Fox Class A common stock."
When the deal goes through – subject to the usual customary closing conditions – existing Fox shareholders will own 73% of the combined company, with Roku shareholders owning the remaining 27%.
