Menu
Media

Japanese Satcom Provider Signs Five-Year Deal For Overseas Rights To J.League

SKY Perfect JSAT Corp. has bought the overseas broadcast rights to all J.League games in a five-year deal worth 350M yen ($2.9M) annually. The deal reportedly is five times what Japanese football was getting from its previous arrangement with World Sports Group, and covers TV and Internet rights for all games from the top three divisions and the league cup. SKY Perfect, which operates sports channels in Japan as well as Asia's largest fleet of satellites, received 4.4B yen ($36.8M) from the government-backed Cool Japan Fund earlier this month for an 11B yen ($92M) expansion of its int'l "Wakuwaku" channel, which carries J.League games. The channel is already broadcasting in Indonesia and Malaysia, where it has been promoting the J.League by cooperating on arranging friendlies and team tours, in addition to broadcasting games and highlight shows.

BUILDING THE BASE: Cool Japan Fund Exec Dir Kakuya Yoritaka told SBD Global, "In Asia, football is the number one sport, but it's the European leagues that are really popular. Just showing J.League games won't necessarily boost popularity, so they have plans to take Japanese players to the countries and have them do football clinics and other promotion." The plan is to expand the Wakuwaku channel to 22 countries by '20, beginning with Asia, before expanding to the Americas and Europe. Sky Perfect has a close relationship with the J.League through broadcasting its games in Japan to its 3 million subscribers.
Gavin Blair is a writer in Tokyo.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, BTN’s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+’s The Dynasty

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Network’s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJ’s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Global/Issues/2015/04/17/Media/SKY-Perfect.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Global/Issues/2015/04/17/Media/SKY-Perfect.aspx

CLOSE