Japanese satellite TV network Wowow has extended its exclusive broadcast rights to European soccer’s UEFA men’s club competitions for another four seasons. In addition, the broadcaster has added the UEFA Women's Champions League (UWCL) to its portfolio for the first time.
Through this agreement, Wowow will continue to showcase elite football tournaments such as the UEFA Champions League (UCL), secondary Europa League, and third-tier Conference League through the 2030-31 season. The network will provide linear television broadcast and streaming coverage of all three competitions on its Wowow On Demand OTT service. It also holds rights to exclusively air select fixtures from the UEFA Youth League.
Wowow had already secured domestic UEFA club rights for the 2024-27 cycle in an early renewal of a key property. The pay-television broadcaster has held these rights since the 2020-21 season. The new expanded formats of UCL, Europa League, and Conference League were first utilized in the 2024-25 campaign. These competitions increased in size from 32 teams to 36 with each side playing eight games instead of six previously. The group stage format was scrapped and replaced by a single league table before moving into knockout stages.
Attracting Japanese audience
Several top Japanese players often compete across Europe's top competitions making these rights an attractive prospect in Japan. Notable players include Liverpool midfielder Wataru Endo, AS Monaco’s Takumi Minamino among others who have made their mark on European football fields.
Wowow’s new deal for broadcasting UWCL will commence from this season’s quarter-final stage onwards where it will exclusively live stream all matches including semi-finals and final stages. From seasons spanning between 2026-27 to 2029-30, Wowow will broadcast and stream the entire season from the league phase through to the final. The knockout phase of this season’s competition begins on March 25, with a series of exciting matches lined up.
The UWCL features several Japanese women's national team players such as Bayern's Momoko Tanigawa and Manchester United's Hinata Miyazawa, further enhancing its appeal to Japanese viewers.
Wowow’s elite sports rights portfolio
Wowow boasts a strong portfolio of elite sports rights that includes rugby union’s Super Rugby Pacific competition, golf’s Ladies PGA Tour, basketball’s NBA, tennis’ ATP Tour and several high-profile boxing cards.
The deal was announced by UC3 - a joint venture between UEFA and European Football Clubs that controls marketing, sales and delivery of commercial rights for UEFA club competitions.
In other recent developments in broadcasting rights deals for UEFA club competitions: Ziggo Sport in Netherlands is set to retain its rights after becoming the governing body's preferred bidder; Telecoms giant America Movil has added Europa League and Conference League to its UCL deal in Mexico and Central America; At the start of March, UEFA launched a UCL broadcast rights tender for 19 markets across Europe, Central America and South America.
