Australian commercial broadcaster Seven Network has secured exclusive rights in Australia to ONE Championship, the Singapore-based international mixed martial arts (MMA) series.
The deal, announced today (March 16), will see ONE broadcast in Australia for the first time and follows major deals for the series in the US and Canada with Amazon Prime and the Middle East and North Africa with BeIN Media Group.
Seven will show the ONE Fight Night and ONE Friday Fights events free-to-air on its 7plus streaming service, with ONE’s archive of “more than 100 past events and 500 hours of content” also made available.
The partnership will begin tomorrow (March 17) and represents the first time Seven will broadcast mixed martial arts content.
Seven has characterized the tie-up as a consolidation of its position as “the most-watched sports broadcaster” in Australia. Among the other sporting properties to which it has rights are Australian football’s AFL, American football’s NFL, motor racing’s Supercars, the World Surf League, and, through a deal announced last month, the LIV Golf League tour.
Gereurd Roberts, chief digital officer at the broadcaster’s parent company Seven West Media, said: “We are thrilled to bring ONE Championship to 7plus, live and free, where it will reach over 13.5 million users.
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By GlobalData"The incredible growth of mixed martial arts globally and the soaring growth of ONE in Asia demonstrates the demand from viewers to watch world-class sports content, and points to the strong engagement we expect to see on 7plus.”
Hua Fung Teh, co-founder and group president of ONE Championship, added: “We’re incredibly excited to finally bring ONE to a major Australian network and honored to do it by partnering with Seven, the country’s number one broadcast network.
“This is yet another historic milestone in ONE’s journey and we can’t wait to engage with our growing fan base in Australia and give them the free-to-air access to our martial arts events that they’ve been waiting for.”