The Japan Consortium, which includes public-service broadcaster NHK and the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association (JBA), has extended its Olympic Games rights deal until the 2032 summer Olympics.
The Japan Consortium already held rights until the 2024 summer Olympics in Paris through a deal signed in June 2014. The new contract with the International Olympic Committee spans four games from 2026 to 2032, including the 2026 winter Games in Milano-Cortina and the 2028 summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Rights secured also include all Youth Olympic Games and winter Youth Olympic Games between 2026 and 2032.
The consortium of broadcasters has acquired the exclusive television and digital broadcast rights with a commitment to broadcast its “most comprehensive coverage ever across all media platforms, including every single Olympic sport, with unprecedented digital content and Olympic Games coverage on free-to-air national television channels”.
Certain non-live rights have been retained by the IOC to showcase on its own digital platforms. The IOC is increasingly looking to retain clip rights for its Olympic Channel, and has held back such rights in 68 territories for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, as recently reported by SportBusiness.
The Japan Consortium’s existing Olympic rights deal runs from 2018 to 2024 and covers rights across all media platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription television, internet and mobile. It is worth a total of ¥110bn (€920.2m/$1.01bn) over the duration.
In renewing with the Japan Consortium, the IOC has further strengthened its ties with the broadcasting body, which has a long-term agreement in place to air Olympic Channel content on the linear and digital channels of its member broadcasters. In July 2018, the Japan Consortium also debuted Olympic Channel-branded digital platforms across multiple outlets.
Along with NHK, the group of broadcasters also includes NTV, TV Asahi, Fuji TV, TBS and TV Tokyo.
Commenting on the new agreement, NHK president Ryoichi Ueda said that the broadcaster would continue to work with JBA and “utilise various channels such as high-definition BS4K/BS8K and the internet so that audiences can enjoy the Olympic Games anywhere and anytime”.
Thomas Bach, the IOC president, remarked: “The Japan Consortium’s significant financial commitment over the course of our partnership is great news for the entire Olympic Movement, since the IOC distributes more than 90 per cent of the revenue generated through its commercial agreements to support athletes and develop sport worldwide.”
The IOC told SportBusiness last month that it is prioritising rights sales in the Asian market as it looks to maximise the momentum from the trio of successive games in the continent (in 2018, 2020 and 2022).
Anne-Sophie Voumard, vice-president of broadcast and media rights at IOC Television & Marketing Services, remarked: “…we have started a new cycle already for 2026 onwards. We announced a deal in Korea with JTBC and that takes us [for two cycles] until 2032.
“We’re really looking at it to see if the market is ready to have those discussions or not. In Korea it was the case and we’re looking at Japan and the rest of Asia. Gradually then we will look into other territories.”