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Executive Column: ONE Championship seeks world sports greatness, eyes American market
ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong spoke to The Jakarta Post about the growing business of the sports entertainment start-up, expansion plans and a breakthrough to air on streaming giant Amazon Prime Video to sway the North American market.
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ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong (One Championship/-)
T
he global sports market is expected to see its value grow from US$354.96 billion in 2021 to $501.43 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41.3 percent, according to Business Research Company’s Sports Global Market Report 2022. As a player aspiring to go global in the industry, ONE Championship inked a deal with Amazon earlier this year to expand further into the North American market, entering the continent boasting the biggest sports market in the world. ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong recently spoke to The Jakarta Post’s Deni Ghifari about the martial arts entertainment start-up’s position and business projections.
Question: How did the idea of building ONE Championship come about?
Answer: I've been doing martial arts for over 38 years. It has been my greatest passion in life and for me, I just wanted to do something where I had a lot of passion and a sense of purpose. I wanted to build an organization that brought hope and strength and dreams to the entire world by showcasing the very best martial artists, the very best of humanity through value stories and heroes, and that's why I started ONE.
How big is ONE now and what are its projection for 10-15 years? Where does the revenue come from?
Our latest valuation is US$1.4 billion. My team and I, we dream about being as big as the NBA [National Basketball Association league], or EPL [Premier League] or the Champions League, or the Olympics. That's our dream.
But, like every start-up, it's all still about the investment phase right now for ONE, although I do believe we will turn profitable in the near future. We are still in the investment phase, we are growing very fast around the world and in order to grow globally, you have to invest all around the world.
The biggest revenue stream still comes from media rights as we're broadcasting in 154 countries globally. We receive revenue from all of our broadcast partners around the world for our content.
