Wowow, the pay-television broadcaster in Japan, has retained exclusive media rights to Uefa club competitions in the country for the 2024-27 cycle.
SportBusiness has learned there was no tender issued in Japan for the rights, with Uefa and its sales agent Team Marketing dealing directly with the incumbent.
Wowow said today (Wednesday) that its comprehensive agreement covers the Uefa Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, as well as the Uefa Super Cup and Youth League.
It will be the first time that Wowow will show the third-tier Conference League, albeit the broadcaster said it will only carry select matches as well as the final live.
In the current 2021-24 cycle, Wowow holds exclusive rights to the Champions League and Europa League only.
Wowow first picked up the European club competition rights in the latter half of 2020-21, taking advantage of DAZN’s decision to withdraw early from its deal with Uefa and Team, citing the Covid-19 pandemic.
DAZN had acquired the rights for the 2018-21 cycle, but exited the contract at the end of 2019-20.
The value of Uefa club competition rights fell heavily in Japan in the last sales period as a result of DAZN’s move, with Wowow facing little or no competition to secure the 2021-24 contract.
For details on the value of the current Uefa club competition rights in Japan, read this SportBusiness Media report.
Audiences for Uefa club competition rights in Japan are hobbled by the early morning, midweek kick-off times. For example, the group stage Champions League and Europa League kick-off times are at 2:45am and 5am in Japan.
Japan has become one of the toughest markets in Asia for rights-sellers, hit by a multitude of negative factors. DAZN launched in the country in 2016, but has reeled in spending after several years of aggressive expansion, while major pay-television broadcasters are suffering from declining subscriber bases – Wowow’s own subscriber base fell from 2.9m to 2.6m between 2019 and 2022.
In addition, free-to-air broadcasters have cut sports budgets after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which encouraged several years of investment in sport. Macro factors like the pandemic and Japan’s longer economic stagnation have also weighed on rights values.
In recent months that has led to greater collaboration among broadcasters, with Wowow having struck a sports content agreement with Abema, just last month, giving subscribers of the Japanese streaming platform access to the remaining rounds of this season’s Champions League. That agreement followed a similar tie-up between Abema and DAZN at the end of February.