Roku, Hello Sunshine to Launch Women’s Sports Studio Show (Exclusive)

Women’s sports are having a moment, with viewership up, leagues inking lucrative new TV deals, and interest among fans never higher.

With that in mind, the streaming platform Roku, Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and Rich Eisen Productions are set to launch a new studio show on Roku Channel dedicated to women’s sports. Called Women’s Sports Now, the weekly series will be hosted by former WNBA star and current co-owner of the Atlanta Dream Renee Montgomery, and comedian Sarah Tiana, joined by veteran sports reporter Suzy Shuster, who will also executive produce the program.

Miller Lite is on board as the presenting launch sponsor.

The show will take a big picture look at the world of women’s sports, including basketball, soccer, volleyball, college sports and more. According to Shuster, the idea for the show came from her personal experience, not only as a sports journalist, but as a mother of an athletic hopeful.

“I have an 11 year old hooper who plays in three leagues, who wears a Caitlin Clark t-shirt every day of her life, and was Caitlin for Halloween, complete with a braid down to her waist with eyeballs in the back of her braid, because she said ‘Caitlin’s got eyeballs in the back of her head,” Shuster says. “And what I realized is there’s just no way for my daughter to see herself on television, except for rare opportunities pre- and post- WNBA games, NCAA games, some assorted programming. I wanted to create a show that she could see herself in.”

Roku, meanwhile, is eager to tap into an audience that it sees as being underserved elsewhere. Sure, sports studio shows will touch on women’s sports, and there are pre- and post-game options, but a dedicated studio show is a proposition that the platform believes will fit in nicely with its other sports programming, which includes GMFB: Overtime, and The Rich Eisen Show.

“We want to reach an audience that is looking for the voice that the show is going to bring,” says Joe Franzetta, Roku’s head of sports. “We know it’s out there, and I think it rounds out our offering in many ways, in terms of the sports talk offering that we have. We know sports talk does well on our platform. We think that this show is going to bring a unique perspective to to that overall conversation.”

The format will see highlights and clips combined with banter, studio segments and special guests in each episode.

“If there’s a headline or a trending topic that’s happening in women’s sports, you can assume that we’re going to be covering it in some way, shape or form,” Montgomery says, adding that they wabnt to make the program as accessible as possible. “I think the the thing that this show is that’s most appealing about it is that it’ll be relatable to any level of sports fan, you don’t need to know a player’s name or stats or any of those details to come enjoy the show, because the show is going to be entertaining, it’s going to be fun.”

“That levity and that that fun is so important to us, the comedy is key,” adds Sara Rae, head of unscripted for Hello Sunshine. “At Hello Sunshine, our mission is putting women at the center, and to set out to change the narrative for women in in media and entertainment, and the narrative for women in sports and female athletes has been changing over the past few years in such a great and deserved way, and we want to be a part of it.”