The German top-flight soccer league, Bundesliga, has announced a free-to-air (FTA) rights deal in Japan with sports streaming platform Abema for the 2025-26 season. This move is set to increase the exposure of Bundesliga in Japan and cater to the growing fan base of German football.
Abema will broadcast two Bundesliga games FTA every week throughout the campaign. The coverage will also include highlights and original programming. The OTT platform will specifically focus on clubs featuring Japanese players.
The coverage begins this weekend with Freiburg vs. Augsburg and Mainz vs. Cologne as the new season gets underway. In the second matchday, Stuttgart vs Borussia Monchengladbach and Wolfsburg vs Mainz matches will be aired by Abema.
Peer Naubert, Bundesliga International chief executive, said:
“This new deal with Abema marks a significant step in expanding our reach in Japan and deepens our connection with one of Asia’s most passionate football audiences.
“We are the most active league in Japan, and creating touchpoints for fans is core to our approach. Our partnership with Abema helps us to increase our digital exposure in Japan.”
Boost for Bundesliga's exposure in Japan
This agreement comes after DAZN, a global subscription streaming service, recently secured most of the broadcasting rights for Bundesliga matches in Japan for three seasons from 2025-26 to 2027-28. Last season saw Abema covering Bundesliga action through a sub-licensing tie-up with Sky PerfecTV whose deal expired at end of 2024-25 season.
In addition to this new FTA deal, Abema had previously aired 104 games during 2023-24 campaign following an initial agreement covering 45 matches during latter stages of 2022-23 season.
A total of fourteen Japanese players are featured across both tiers -Bundesliga and second-tier Bundesliga squads -for upcoming season including Bayern Munich's Hiroki Itō and Eintracht Frankfurt's Ritsu Dōan among others. Since its inception in1963-64, a total of forty-eight Japanese players have played in Bundesliga which is claimed to be more than any of the other top five European leagues.
Bundesliga's expansion in Asian market
Bundesliga International, the league’s commercial arm, has recently concluded several rights deals in the Asian market. These include agreements with state-owned media and telecoms heavyweight Viettel in Vietnam and free-to-air channel PPTV in Thailand. In addition to these, a four-year extension was announced with United Media across nine territories while an extension was also agreed upon with pay-TV heavyweight Sky Italia earlier this month.
Domestically, Bundesliga will be covered live by Sky Deutschland and DAZN. The DFL German league organizing body has announced a technology partnership with ServiceNow, a digital workflow company. As the official workflow partner of DFL, ServiceNow aims to replace legacy systems and become the core AI platform for improving automation and efficiency in DFL’s business workflows.
This partnership is expected to enhance experience for partners, clubs and service providers through efficient solutions supporting group’s digital ambitions including products related to IT service management, human resources and customer management.
