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ONE Championship averaged 29 million global viewers per event in 2019, according to Chatri Sityodtong, the Singapore-based martial arts promotion’s founder and chief executive.
Speaking during the first day of the SportsPro Asia virtual summit, Sityodtong cited Nielsen data as he outlined how ONE has prioritised free content to create mass reach since its inception in 2011.
“It’s a deliberate strategy,” Sityodtong said. “We purposefully go on all the free-to-air channels, the biggest broadcasters across Asia, we went on the biggest digital platforms. In the initial years we gave all of our content for free so our metrics literally skyrocketed.”
To illustrate that growth, ONE’s 100th live event in November of last year, which featured two cards and was broadcast in 145 countries, drew a record-breaking 85 million viewers worldwide across all platforms.
Between 2014 and 2017, ONE also saw its impressions on social media grow from 352 million to 4.8 billion, while video views of its content on the main social media platforms climbed from 312,000 to 600 million during that time.
Sityodtong went on to point out the difference between ONE’s strategy and that of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is broadcast in the US by subscription streaming service ESPN+ and is also behind a paywall in other territories.
“It’s a difference in approach,” Sityodtong continued. “When you look at our US counterparts, they’re behind a double paywall, so you’re going to have smaller viewership numbers.
“It’s a strategy, a choice. Our strategy is much like Facebook in the early days, or even WhatsApp, or YouTube, where they gave away everything to consumers for free and consumers just rode it, then eventually you monetise.”
ONE Championship averaged 29 million global viewers per event in 2019, according to Chatri Sityodtong, the Singapore-based martial arts promotion’s founder and chief executive.
Speaking during the first day of the SportsPro Asia virtual summit, Sityodtong cited Nielsen data as he outlined how ONE has prioritised free content to create mass reach since its inception in 2011.
“It’s a deliberate strategy,” Sityodtong said. “We purposefully go on all the free-to-air channels, the biggest broadcasters across Asia, we went on the biggest digital platforms. In the initial years we gave all of our content for free so our metrics literally skyrocketed.”
To illustrate that growth, ONE’s 100th live event in November of last year, which featured two cards and was broadcast in 145 countries, drew a record-breaking 85 million viewers worldwide.
Between 2014 and 2017, ONE also saw its impressions on social media grow from 352 million to 4.8 billion, while video views of its content on the main social media platforms climbed from 312,000 to 600 million during that time.
Sityodtong went on to point out the difference between ONE’s strategy and that of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is broadcast in the US by subscription streaming service ESPN+ and is also behind a paywall in other territories.
“It’s a difference in approach,” Sityodtong continued. “When you look at our US counterparts, they’re behind a double paywall, so you’re going to have smaller viewership numbers.
“It’s a strategy, a choice. Our strategy is much like Facebook in the early days, or even WhatsApp, or YouTube, where they gave away everything to consumers for free and consumers just rode it, then eventually you monetise.”
