One World Sports strikes rights deal for top Japanese baseball team

Asia-focused sports broadcaster One World Sports has acquired North American rights for games featuring the Yomiuri Giants, Japan’s most popular and successful baseball team.

One World Sports acquired the rights in a sublicensing deal with Japanese commercial broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corporation, which has the worldwide rights to the team’s games in the Nippon Professional Baseball league, the top division of the sport in the country.

The deal will run for the duration of the 2013 season.

One World Sports, which has carriage deals with pay-television operators Dish Network, Cablevision and Mediacom in the US, plans to broadcast at least three Giants games live per week in primetime from March 29 until the end of the regular-season in September.

The rights can be exploited in North America via television and the internet.