Japanese streaming platform U-Next has secured rights to air international tournaments organized by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) governing body and its World Table Tennis (WTT) commercial arm through a deal with Japanese free-to-air and satellite television network TV Tokyo, the country’s primary WTT rights holder.
The deal will see U-Next air international table tennis tournaments alongside TV Tokyo in the run-up to the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028, including the 2028 ITTF World Table Tennis Championship Finals, which will be staged in Fukuoka, Japan.
The rights add to U-Next’s growing portfolio of sports rights, which includes all four men’s golf majors and various Japan Ladies Professional Golf Association tours, men’s tennis’ ATP Tour for the next five seasons, English Premier League soccer, Spanish soccer’s LaLiga, and mixed martial arts’ Professional Fighters League.
The deal comes shortly after TV Tokyo renewed its broadcast partnership with WTT for an additional four years, running through 2028.
That deal, which builds WTT’s first broadcast partnership with WTT following the body’s establishment in 2021, covers every WTT Series event each year, including top-tier Grand Smash and WTT Champions events, the developmental WTT Contender and Star Contender tours, and the season-ending WTT Finals.
Additionally, the deal also includes the global ITTF World events, including the ITTF Singles World Cup, the ITTF World Youth Championships, and the ITTF Mixed Team World Cup.
Japan is one of the strongest nations in table tennis, boasting men’s singles world number four Harimoto Tomokazu, four representatives in the women’s singles world top 10, the number two doubles teams in the world in both the men’s and women’s categories, and the fourth-ranked mixed doubles duo.
The deal comes as WTT continues to strengthen its broadcast partner portfolio this year, having hired global sports and media agency IMG in January to distribute rights to its elite table tennis events in a deal running through 2025.
So far, the partnership has seen a significant broadcast deal struck in the US earlier this year with heavyweight sports broadcaster ESPN, while IMG also brokered a four-year extension of WTT’s media partnership with streaming platform Migu, a digital subsidiary of state-owned telecoms company China Mobile, running through the 2028 season.
Additionally, Swedish public-service broadcaster SVT agreed a new multi-year broadcast partnership with WTT to show its WTT Series events in May.
