Ahead of the NCAA March Madness tournament kick off with selections next Sunday, Roku has built a dedicated CTV home screen destination for fans to more easily find and track all live games, alongside access to key highlights and replays.
Built in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports and CBS Sports, Roku’s NCAA March Madness Zone will be available exclusively in the U.S. throughout all four weeks of the college basketball event and offers access to coverage of both the men’s and women’s tournaments.
The dedicated hub follows earlier efforts by Roku with its Sports Zone, which is meant to help streamline and simplify the streaming sports experience for fans dealing with a fragmented distribution and viewing landscape.
And with prominent placement on the Roku Home screen, alongside multiple additional entry points on the platform, the centralized location is also a way to help drive tune-in and engagement of the tournament for premium subscription partners like WBD’s HBO Max and Paramount’s Paramount+.
Some features for fans include the ability to see the viewing options for each match-up based on Roku users’ existing subscriptions. On Roku that includes access to live men’s games available to stream on the NCAA March Madness Live app and through the platform’s Premium Subscription partners, including HBO Max and Paramount+. Men’s games are also available via broadcast on TBS, CBS, TNT, truTV and other providers.
Roku integrated a signup method directly within the centralized tournament zone for users that aren’t yet subscribed to services. Paramount+ is also offering a discount to those who sign up as subscribers from March 19 to March 31, with a $2.99 per month promotional price for the first two months – both via The Roku Channel or the standalone app.
And with a flurry of matchups happening throughout the tournament, the ability to easily find, track and access live games in one location could be welcomed by college basketball fans.
Recent survey data from Hub Entertainment Research found 87% of sports fans continue to be frustrated by the challenge of finding a specific live match-up as teams and games are splintered across various services and platforms. Asked about Roku’s existing Sports Zone experience specifically, 60% of Hub respondents felt the feature would make their sports viewing experience easier.
In addition to surfacing options of where to watch live games, the dedicated March Madness hub lets fans set reminders for their favorite match-ups and see final scores with a newly added score-strip row.
Beyond on-the-court action, the streaming platform is making shorter-form content with highlights and key moments available in the zone, along with game replays on The Roku Channel.
Bringing sports highlights and clips into the mix is another trend some are pursuing, particularly as they seek to attract younger fans that appear to prefer engaging with more short-form sports content and in ways that go beyond the live broadcast (as findings from Altman Solon’s recent Global Sports Survey showed).
“March Madness is a time when sports fans everywhere stop what they’re doing and lock in for a tournament full of buzzer‑beaters, Cinderella runs, and bracket‑busting upsets,” said Joe Franzetta, Head of Sports at Roku Media, in a statement. “The NCAA March Madness Zone makes it simple for fans to find every game, relive the highlights, and stay focused on their team’s evolving stories. We’re excited to partner with TNT Sports and CBS Sports to deliver a seamless viewing experience for millions of fans tuning in.”
As for Roku, the dedicated March Madness hub not only builds on earlier sports aggregation efforts but also stands to feed into two of the company’s focus areas to accelerate platform growth, including improved monetization of its home screen real-estate and growing Roku subscriptions.