Good Morning Football officially relaunched this week with its new cast and new West Coast location. Along with that, the main GMFB show on NFL Network was shortened from three hours to two hours (8 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET), while a two-hour Good Morning Football: Overtime with the same cast now airs from 10 a.m. to noon ET. But GMFB Overtime isn’t on NFLN; rather, it streams for free on The Roku Channel.
GMFB: Overtime will also be carried in syndication on broadcast affiliates beginning in September . But for the moment, The Roku Channel is the way to watch it . And in a recent interview with AA, Roku director of product for sports Drew Adams spoke about how the show is a key part of his company’s overall sports focus (which also includes deals like the NBC Olympic Zone ). Adams said this deal has been in the works for some time, and GMFB: Overtime expands on what they’re already doing with the NFL with the NFL Zone hub.
“We have ambitions to continue to add to the sports that we’ve got within The Roku Channel. And Good Morning Football was a show that we’ve been working on behind the scenes for a while, especially from behind in terms of how we’re going to support it from a technical perspective. So we were excited for the deal to close and for it to finally be announced.”
Adams said Roku’s experience with the NFL Zone hub has been useful for them, and has shown the power NFL content can have.
“We’ve leaned in a lot with the NFL over the last year with our NFL Zone and what’s going on on the Roku platform side to promote discovery of of the NFL,” he said. “I think this was just a really good opportunity for us to continue to add content under that umbrella and bring more free sports to The Roku Channel, ultimately.”
The GMFB: Overtime launch is particularly interesting, with that giving Roku a month-plus where they’re the only way to watch the new show before it goes into syndication to local broadcast networks in September. Adams said that exclusivity is a big benefit for Roku.
“That’s a neat element of the of the deal where we have this runway before it gets broader distribution. And hopefully we can capitalize on that window as a way to draw attention to the fact that it’s on The Roku Channel. And for folks that might otherwise not be familiar that it’s going to have a new home, a dedicated home for that window, that could be a good opportunity for us to to draw awareness to the show being on there.”
Adams said he thinks there will be lots of interest in the new GMFB look and format, including GMFB: Overtime .
“It’s moving from New York to LA, and there’s some new faces that will that will be on there. So we’re excited to be a part of it. It’ll be a revamped show, and obviously covering the biggest league in sports in the U.S., so I think it’s a good opportunity for us, and for them to hopefully attract a different audience and leverage the scale that we have at Roku to get that in in front of as many eyeballs as they can.”
He said it’s useful for The Roku Channel to pick up a show like GMFB: Overtime that while new itself, has the history of the original show to draw from.
“It certainly is. You inherit an audience, right? That’s yours for that show. And there there’s a good chance that a lot of that audience already has a Roku device, or has the The Roku Channel app that they consume content through. So hopefully it’s an easy transition for that audience to be able to come and find the content on Roku.”
Adams said the massive interest in the NFL as a whole also helped with the decision to pick up this show.
“Any time you have a show of this nature that’s focused on a sport like football and a league like the NFL, it helps capture just that broader audience because there’s so much interest in this league,” he said. “And like I said before too, there’s a really good overlap here with the efforts we’re making to extend our sports catalog on The Roku Channel, especially in front of a paywall.”
Adams said shows like GMFB: Overtime can tie into Roku’s approach of being a hub for both overall sports content (Sports Zone) and league-specific content (NFL Zone, NBA Zone, MLB Zone, NBC Olympics Zone).
“There’s also what we’ve done on our platform side of the business with the NFL Zone and our Sports Zone. We have these evergreen destinations where we have sports content. And to be able to have a show like just be able to also live there as well as directly within The Roku Channel is just a good thing across the board.”
Speaking of shows that often feature the NFL and can be found on The Roku Channel, Roku made the big move of picking up The Rich Eisen Show back in August 2022 . Adams said Eisen has been a great fit for what the company is looking to do in sports.
“Rich is just a fantastic partner,” Adams said. “I’m a degree removed from the day-to-day with Rich because I’m not on that side of the business, but I’ll say that from all accounts he’s just a fantastic partner to work with. He’s really leaned into the Roku relationship, and he’s done a lot to just promote Roku and the fact that his show is on there. And we’ve been able to do some really neat things with Rich around the Super Bowl and what have you.”
And Adams said that partnership has been great for raising awareness of what Roku is doing in the sports space.
“Rich Eisen is just a known entity in this space, really well-respected, and people will seek out Rich wherever he is. And then he’s on Roku. And I think for us it was awesome to get him on board where we have this really well-known figure in the sports space come on and be a part of our company and our brand.”
Adams said he thinks that deal is mutually beneficial.
“We’re helping each other, right? We’re helping him grow and gain even a larger audience, and he’s helping us just legitimize what we’re doing with sports and being part of that conversation. So we were fortunate to have him be a part of this early on, and it’s great to continue to see that show take off and do awesome things.”
For Adams personally, he joined Roku in September 2022, shortly after Eisen’s show moved there. He then helped them launch their Sports Zone hub in November, and several subsequent hubs after that. His previous sports work includes roles at Fubo, Comcast, and Rise Sports.
Adams also had quite the lacrosse career at Penn State and then in the Premier Lacrosse League (where he
still holds an all-time saves record ). He said he’s thrilled to keep working in the sports space, especially at a point where streaming seems to be really taking off. And he said he relished the opportunity to join Roku right when they were ramping up their sports efforts.
“I love sports and tech. I feel really fortunate now to have been in, in this space for a while. And it’s been a fun ride because it’s evolving so quickly. This was an awesome opportunity because I joined here right as sports was kind of taking off. We hadn’t launched any of these platform experiences yet. We didn’t have any of these relationships.
“The only Roku Original that we were working with at the time was Rich Eisen, and that was just recently launched. So we were still in the infancy. So, for me, it was just a really good opportunity to get involved early on.”
Adams said he felt Roku’s scale and penetration in other arenas has made it credible for them to enter sports with some scale and some big-name partnerships.
“We’ve got a lot of momentum overall with Roku and what we’ve been able to accomplish outside of sports,” he said. “And now to be able to kind of own this domain of sports, and push that forward, along with everything else that’s happening at Roku, was just a really awesome opportunity.”
And he said he’s excited about what’s ahead, as Roku has big plans to keep boosting their sports presence.
“It’s been a blast being able to be a part of this and being able to kind of see this thing go from zero to one to two. We have a lot of ambitions for how we want to continue to move ahead and evolve. And I’m excited to be here, and to be a part of it.”
[ Good Morning Football: Overtime image from Roku]
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