The World Baseball Softball Confederation has unveiled rights deals in the Americas, Asia and Oceania for its 2016 Women’s Baseball World Cup, which gets underway on Saturday in Gijang, South Korea.
Korean commercial broadcaster SBS has been awarded the host broadcasting rights. SBS will oversee the production of 26 of the 32 games at the tournament, with exclusive rights across all media platforms, including mobile, online and television.
In Oceania, pay-television broadcaster ESPN has acquired television rights in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea. ESPN will show matches featuring the Australian team.
In Japan, the BS-TBS network will provide free-to-air coverage, while pay-television channel J Sports will also broadcast matches.
Pay-television broadcasters Astro, Eleven Sports and Videoland have also acquired rights in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan respectively.
Mexican media company AYM Sports has also snapped up rights in Mexico, Puerto Rico and the US.
The confederation will additionally stream live coverage of the tournament on a global basis via its official channel on video-sharing website YouTube in territories where rights deals have not been agreed.