Japanese football’s J.League has unveiled its international media-rights partners for the upcoming 2021 season, including new deals with pay-television broadcasters K-Vision in Indonesia and Dubai Sports in the Mena region. The J.League has 14 deals in place, covering 55 territories across Asia-Pacific, Europe, Central Asia, and Mena. There is also a worldwide, excluding Japan, news access rights deal with sports news platform SNTV. Most of the deals were already in place ahead of last season, although last season only 31 territories were covered. The new Dubai Sports deal in Mena covers 24 territories. Dubai Sports is a sports broadcaster operated by state-owned media group Dubai Media: Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen (24 countries in total). The new partner in Indonesia, K-Vision, is a satellite pay-television platform owned by the MNC media group. MNC also operates free-to-air and pay-television channels, and streaming arm Vidio, and is one of the leading players in sports media in the country. The 2021 J.League top-tier J1 season begins tomorrow, with second-tier J2 to follow on Saturday. J1 is scheduled to run through to a last round of fixtures on December 4, and J2 to December 5. Both leagues will take a three-week break in the middle of the year for the Tokyo Olympics. J.League chairman Mitsuru Murai told SportBusiness in December that the league was well-prepared to handle the Covid-19 threat this year, having refined its safeguards throughout last season. He said the league would explore new technology this season to better engage fans, with stadium attendance expected to be limited again this year. Last season, stadiums were open up to half-capacity, but a maximum of only 5,000 fans per match. The Dentsu agency distributes J.League international rights in all territories outside of China after acquiring them in October 2019. The China Sports Media agency is the J.League’s distributor inside of China. Both parties’ deals run until 2022. Rights in China for the 2021 season are held by K-Ball, the online streaming service of Win Power, a subsidiary of China Sports Media. The J.League said its estimated total number of overseas viewers last season had increased by 32 per cent compared to 2019, to 15.2m, according to figures from Nielsen Sports Japan.
