Roku customers can breathe a sigh of relief it looked Roku owners would be losing the highest-quality way to stream the Super Bowl for free, when the set-top box maker announced Thursday that it would abruptly pull Fox’s apps off the platform a day ahead of the game. But that won’t actually be happening.
Late Friday, Roku and Fox announced that they’ve reached a new agreement that will ensure the Fox apps keep on working without pause — and they’ll be restored to the Roku app store this weekend ahead of the game.
“We are delighted that we reached an agreement with FOX to distribute FOX channels on the Roku platform. Roku customers can stream the Super Bowl through FOX Now, Fox Sports and NFL in addition to other ways,” the company said Friday night.
The Super Bowl is set to air on Fox this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET, with the San Francisco 49ers taking on the Kansas City Chiefs in Miami.
The deal comes after Roku said Thursday it would drop all of Fox’s streaming apps from its platform. The two companies then engaged in a war of words through the media. A rep for Roku told CNET the company was continuing to negotiate with Fox in an effort to reach a new agreement.
Fox, meanwhile, immediately pushed back against Roku. In a statement shared with TheWrap, Fox said the situation was a “naked effort” by Roku to use its “customers as pawns.” Fox added it’s a “poorly timed negotiating ploy” by Roku, and that the company is “fabricating a crisis with no thought for the alarm it generated among its own customers.”
