Why Roku is a key platform for live sports streaming
Roku is the top-selling TV operating system in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, with approximately 89.8 million active accounts worldwide as of Q4 2024. Its scale and reach make it a critical platform for content distribution.
Streaming has become the dominant way people watch sports. According to Roku’s analysis of Nielsen data, viewers aged 18 to 49 spent 54% of their sports viewing time on streaming platforms in 2024, up from just 31% in 2022. This shift reflects a major change in how audiences consume live sports.
Roku also has a highly engaged sports audience. The Head of Sports at Roku noted that around 75% of Roku users follow sports, and nearly one-third identify as avid sports fans. With such a large and passionate sports-viewing base, it is essential for live sports publishers to deliver a high-quality viewer experience on Roku platforms.
The challenges of streaming on Roku
Roku has a wide and highly engaged user base, making it a valuable platform for live sports streaming. However, its unique development environment and technical architecture introduce challenges for video playback.
A proprietary ecosystem
Unlike other streaming platforms that use widely adopted development frameworks, Roku has its own proprietary language called BrightScript and a custom UI framework, SceneGraph. This makes Roku development quite different from Android TV, Apple TV, or Fire TV. As a result, it can be difficult to find developers with deep video playback expertise in Roku’s ecosystem. This often slows down development cycles and increases costs.
Roku’s native video player
Roku’s native video playback is powered by the Video Node within its SceneGraph framework. This component provides reliable support for basic streaming functionality and is well-suited for basic playback scenarios.
However, Integrating advanced features like ad insertion, analytics, and DRM can make development more complex. These capabilities often require custom implementations using BrightScript and XML. This adds extra development work and can lead to integration challenges if not carefully managed.
To avoid the ongoing maintenance burden of customizing and supporting a native player across platforms, many publishers would choose a cross-platform commercial video player. This approach can simplify development, especially when targeting multiple devices and ecosystems. In the next section, we’ll explore how commercial video players like Dolby OptiView Player help overcome these playback technical hurdles and enable high-quality, scalable sports streaming across Roku and other platforms.
Simplifying your workflow with Dolby OptiView Player
Dolby OptiView Player is a leading cross-platform video player designed to deliver premium viewer experiences across devices. Over the past year, our team has focused on enhancing the Roku SDK. The goal is to help publishers deliver a consistent, high-quality experience with advanced features, just like they do on other platforms.
Smooth integration with analytics
The Dolby OptiView Player Roku SDK makes it simplier to integrate with major analytics providers such as Conviva, Adobe Edge, and Comscore. These connectors make it easy to provide valuable insights into streaming performance, helping publishers monitor playback quality and optimize viewer experiences.
Easy integration with client-side advertising (CSAI)
In addition to analytics, our Roku SDK simplifies client-side ad insertion with easy API integration. It supports pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads using VAST and VMAP, and makes ad event tracking easier. While the native Roku Ads Framework (RAF) can be complex to configure and monitor, Dolby OptiView Player enables accurate tracking of key events such as ad breaks and individual ad starts and completions.
Advanced support for live sports streaming
Advanced support for metadata and embedded text tracks is included in our Roku SDK. This enables publishers to use in-stream data like timestamps to mark program boundaries or ad breaks. This functionality allows for more dynamic and responsive user interfaces, which are particularly beneficial for live sports.
For sports streaming providers, a seamless integration with Dolby OptiView Streaming is supported. It ensures that live sports streams are resilient, high quality, and globally scalable. It also offers configurable low latency tailored to specific needs, whether matching broadcast latency or syncing video with live data. With a unified streaming solution that works across platforms including Roku, Dolby helps sports publishers consistently deliver premium live sports streaming experiences.
Deliver consistency across every screen
Roku is a key platform for reaching sports fans. They expect to watch live events wherever they are, at home or on the go. But fans aren’t just watching on Roku, they’re tuning in from a wide range of devices, including iOS, Android, and various smart TVs. Dolby OptiView Player helps publishers deliver a consistent, high-quality viewing experience across all screens, without the need to maintain separate native or open source players for each platform. By handling the technical complexities, Dolby frees up publishers’ internal resources to focus on content and fan engagement. With a simple, cross-platform solution, Dolby is the trusted video player partner for leading sports publishers.
Video player support you can count on
Using Dolby OptiView Player means working with a solution built for speed, reliability, and expert support. With bi-weekly releases, your team can quickly adopt new platform features without waiting for long update cycles. Our automated in-house testing system ensures consistent performance across devices, helping reduce the risk of compatibility issues. And with direct access to Dolby’s video experts, your team gets timely support to resolve issues quickly and minimize impact. With a trusted video player partner like Dolby OptiView, your team can save time, reduce maintenance efforts, and release with greater confidence.
Final thoughts
As streaming continues to reshape how audiences consume live sports, platforms like Roku have become essential for reaching fans where they are. With its massive user base and strong sports engagement, Roku is an important platform for publishers to expand their reach and deliver compelling sports content. However, navigating its unique development environment requires thoughtful solutions. Dolby OptiView Player simplifies the workflow by offering a robust, cross-platform video player that streamlines 3rd party integration, and ensures consistency across every screen. For live sports publishers looking to scale and innovate, partnering with a trusted solution like Dolby OptiView Player is a strategic step toward delivering premium sports streaming experiences on Roku and beyond.
