Heads-Up Cord-Cutters, Roku To Bring Live Sports Programming To Its Free Channel

People all around the U.S. are tired of paying high prices for cable or satellite TV. High cost has led to a big movement of people cord-cutting and going to streaming services, rather than paying big cable or satellite. A recent survey showed that cord-cutting is going mainstream as more and more people move to streaming only; big cable and satellite companies see the writing on the wall and are moving to appeal to these users. Comcast recently unveiled a set-top streaming box to lure back some of the 106,000 subscribers it lost in its most recent quarter.

Roku has announced new services that might push sports fans, who have been on the fence about cutting the cord, to get out the scissors. The company announced this week that it was expanding its free streaming service, The Roku Channel, to offer live sports programming as well. This move comes only months after Roku first announced the addition of live content its ad-supported free streaming service. The live content announced previously was from ABC News, Cheddar, Newsmax, Newsy, People TV, Yahoo, Adventure Sports Network, COMBT GO, EDGEsport, Stadium, and Wham Network.

Other content that is coming to The Roku Channel include viral videos from TMZ, AFV, FailArmy, People Are Awesome, Pet Collective, and others; most of those live channels are available to watch now. Roku has made no promise on when the networks that aren't live now will be available at this time. In addition to this live content, The Roku Channel also has 100% free movies with films from Lionsgate, MGM, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Warner Bros. available to watch.

The Comcast set-top streaming box mentioned previously will offer users access to services like Netflix and YouTube among others. The official lineup hasn't been announced at this time, however. Pricing on the cord-cutter solution is unannounced, but word is that movies will be available to rent via the platform and it will have a voice-controlled remote. Regardless, Roku's move underscores a trend that things are heating up in the cord-cutting arena and it does seem to be the way of the world, moving forward.