Media giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has secured the rights to show this year’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo after striking a partnership with the European Broadcasting Union, the alliance of public service broadcasters.
The non-exclusive rights agreement covers 45 markets across Europe, excluding the Nordics and Poland, with WBD promising 30 hours of live coverage across its channels in addition to a daily highlight program.
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WBD’s pan-European channel Eurosport will provide coverage in up to 20 languages, while TNT Sports will air the event in the UK and Ireland. WBD’s streaming services, HBO Max and Discovery+, will cover all events live and on demand.
The 20th edition of the World Athletics Championships is being staged in Tokyo, Japan, from 13 to 21 September, featuring over 2000 athletes from nearly 200 countries competing in 49 events.
Scott Young, EVP at WBD Sports Europe, said: “By coming together with our partners at the EBU, we are expanding the options available to fans for how they watch and engage with their favorite athletes and events.
“And by bringing live coverage of the 2025 World Athletics Championships together with other premium athletics content on our channels and platforms, we are telling the stories of the athletes competing between Olympic cycles, helping the sport continue to grow and reach new audiences.”
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By GlobalDataThe deal was struck with Eurovision Sports, the sports arm of the EBU, which holds broadcast rights to World Athletics Series events, including the World Athletics Championship, as part of a long-term agreement that was most recently renewed in 2020.
That deal runs from 2024 to 2029, covering rights in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa across all platforms, as well as non-exclusive radio rights.
The EBU secured platform-neutral rights in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa from 2018 to 2023 after partnering with the ESPN Media Distribution agency in 2017.
World Athletics’ international rights, meanwhile, are sold by Japanese agency Dentsu as part of its 10-year agreement that ends in 2029. Under that deal, Dentsu distributes the governing body’s international sponsorship and licensing rights, as well as media rights outside Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.
The WBD and EBU have a long-standing relationship when it comes to athletics rights, having struck a similar deal for the previous 2023 edition of the World Athletics Championships hosted by Budapest.
The pair have also jointly secured European rights to the Olympic Games covering the 2026 to 2032 cycle. Under that deal, WBD will air every athletics event for LA28 and Brisbane 2032.
WBD also held European rights to last year’s Olympic Games in Paris, reaching more than 215 million fans in the region. The broadcaster said athletics was by far the most watched sport during the games – contributing to around 18% of all linear viewing and 15 million hours of content streamed on its Max and Discovery+ platforms.
This year, WBD also secured rights to the inaugural Grand Slam Track, the new athletics league founded by American track legend Michael Johnson.
World Athletics, meanwhile, has been ramping up its commercial partners ahead of its flagship event in Tokyo, signing Japanese companies Japan Airlines, Honda, and Otsuka Pharmaceutical as sponsors.
Japanese property management company Mori Building signed up as the event’s principal supporter in the real estate category.
The governing body also announced a renewal of its long-term partnership with Italian sports equipment company Mondo.
