Toward the Creation of a Japan-Born “Athlete Value Maximization Company”
May 1, 2026 FreakOut Holdings, Inc. / UDN SPORTS, Inc.
FreakOut Holdings, Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director & Global CEO: Yuzuru Honda; hereinafter “FreakOut”) announced on May 1, 2026, that it has resolved to acquire a portion of the shares of UDN SPORTS, Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director & President: Rikiya Tomono; hereinafter “UDN SPORTS”) — making it a consolidated subsidiary. UDN SPORTS supports the management and social contribution activities of approximately 180 athletes, including top professional footballers and active Japan national team members (Shinji Kagawa, Hiroshi Kiyotake, Hotaru Yamaguchi, Genki Haraguchi, Gaku Shibasaki, Koki Ogawa, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Kaishu Sano, Rihito Yamamoto, Kodai Sano, Yui Hasegawa, and others), sprinter Abdul Hakim Sani Brown, and badminton player Kento Momota. Based on this integration, FreakOut, UDN SPORTS, UUUM, Inc. (hereinafter “UUUM”), and other FreakOut Group companies will jointly launch an Athlete Value Maximization Project.
In recent years, Japanese football has undergone a dramatic evolution — many Japanese players are now key contributors at the world’s top leagues, and their caliber has earned global recognition. Across athletics, badminton, and other sports, Japanese athletes are also achieving remarkable results on the world stage.
To maximize athletic performance, it is essential to create an environment where athletes can devote themselves entirely to their sport. This demands tailored support across every dimension of an athlete’s needs — contract negotiations with clubs, optimizing competitive environments, branding, and enabling social contribution through sport. UDN SPORTS has consistently operated its agency business with the career and best interests of each individual athlete as the top priority. This integration is built on that same philosophy, with the aim of extending and amplifying its value even further.
By combining UDN SPORTS’s established track record as a sports agency with the diverse expertise of the FreakOut Group, this partnership goes beyond traditional agency functions to maximize athlete value across three pillars:
FreakOut is a marketing technology company that pioneered real-time internet advertising trading in Japan, and has since expanded its advertising and marketing business with a focus on maximizing ad value for advertisers and revenue for publishers. In February 2025, it fully acquired UUUM — one of Japan’s leading YouTube creator agencies — evolving into a uniquely positioned group with both ad technology and influencer marketing at its core, and accumulating a wide range of expertise in the process. The company has also made strategic investments in generative AI-driven business areas, with several already generating revenue.
At the same time, FreakOut has made deliberate investments in domains that AI cannot replace — including the acquisition of UUUM. UDN SPORTS’s business sits squarely in this category: it is rooted in sport as a fundamental human experience, and it supports the growing global success of Japanese athletes, particularly in football. It is, in every sense, a deeply human endeavor — one that AI will never render obsolete.
FreakOut will mobilize the full breadth of its accumulated resources — advertising, social media, ad technology, and UUUM’s influencer marketing capabilities — to realize the vision of UDN SPORTS founder Rikiya Tomono: to maximize the value of athletes. Together, we aim to build Japan’s first true “Athlete Value Maximization Company.”
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FreakOut Holdings, Inc. — PR: Kiminari Iwanaga | pr@fout.jp
UDN SPORTS, Inc. — PR: Hiroka Nagata | h-nagata@udn.jpn.com | Tel: 03-6721-1125
