Among mixed martial arts (MMA) promotions, One Championship is unique in that MMA is not its main focus, but rather one of four sports that the company promotes
With Muay Thai, kickboxing, and submission grappling also thrown into the mix, One’s offering is more varied than that of its competitors, and its focus on the Asian market in particular has allowed the business to distinguish itself in a crowded field of international promotions.
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Founded in 2011 by Chatri Sityodtong, a Thai entrepreneur and former Wall Street investor, and Filipino-Canadian sports executive Victor Cui, One Championship was intended to serve as a singular martial arts promotion to represent the continent of Asia, utilizing the wealth of fighters and strong existing fanbases in territories such as Thailand, combined with modern production and presentation based out of Singapore.
In recent years, Muay Thai in particular has become the backbone of the company as its Thai stars have grown to international prominence, allowing it to expand its reach beyond Asia and into global prominence.
On March 23, One hosted One 172, the latest of its top-line numbered events, in Saitama, Japan, at the city’s Saitama Super Arena. That fight drew gate receipts of over $2 million, the company’s largest ever for a Japanese event (it was the latest of five in the country since 2019), owing to a stacked card of fights that included a super-bout between legendary Japanese kickboxer Takeru Segawa, and Thai superstar Rodtang.
Ahead of that event, Sportcal (GlobalData Sport) spoke to One Championship chief operating officer John Scheler about the company’s international expansion ambitions and how it is balancing revenue generation with growing its fan base.
Bringing content to the fans
The intersection of sport with social media is a natural one. In most sports, it is the fleeting moments of brilliance that attract the most eyes: the goal in soccer, the home run in baseball, the touchdown in American football, and perhaps the pinnacle, the knockout in combat sports.
All that makes martial arts so amenable to the digital era, the contained bout length, the flamboyant showmanship, and the star-making knockouts, could just as easily be the death of any upstart promotion looking to expand rapidly.
After all, if you give away everything for free, what incentive is there for people to convert their fandom into paid purchases? However, if you paywall everything (in turn limiting your promotional capabilities), it will be harder to attract fans at all in the first place.
This is a commercial tightrope that One Championship has chosen to tread as a matter of course, given the demographics of its home region, with Scheler stating: “We've been really aggressive on social media.”
“I think one of the advantages that One has is that it was founded in a part of the world, Southeast Asia, with a younger demographic and a completely digitally native community consuming the majority of its content on the handheld screen. The expectation is different from that demographic than in the United States, where they traditionally restrict viewership to the paid media rights partners.”
“It's market-specific. We're a company that's driving towards profitability right now and taking a look at the best monetization opportunities across all of the markets in which we're broadcast. But, at the same time, we realize we're a growing property in many parts of the world and the best way to develop a fan base, especially in a newer, more nascent market, is to get your product out in front of as many people as possible.”
One posts dozens of times per day across each of its social media platforms, not just promoting events but displaying highlights of select fights and prominent fighters, airing shoulder content and behind-the-scenes footage of its fighters, and, naturally, relaying information.
This social media focus has certainly paid dividends. Despite the linguistic and cultural diversity of its primary Asian market, One Championship boasts over 1 million followers on X (formerly Twitter), over 11 million on Instagram, and a further 11.2 million on the video platform YouTube.
By comparison, the Professional Fighters League promotion has 3.5 million Instagram followers and a little over 1 million on YouTube. Recently, ONE passed the 100 million follower milestone for combined social media accounts.
Scheler adds: “You need to bring your content to fans where they are. I feel, especially with a new brand, that giving fans a behind-the-scenes look makes them feel like they're part of the action, makes them feel that the promotion is invested in them. Giving them access to content and perspectives they wouldn't normally get makes your brand more familiar, more relatable, and more intimate. And I think that's ultimately what's going to drive a compelling fan base.”
“Sometimes the perspective that is offered on broadcast can often be complemented by those second-screen experiences that give fans a much deeper, more robust relationship with an athlete, with a promotion. I think that's how you really hook a fan base.”
This has allowed a product with varying levels of international distribution to maintain a global feel with fans in all six continents.
Resonance
When it comes to leveraging that global audience, more sports properties than ever are bringing events international. Be it American football’s NFL expanding across Western Europe, Australia’s National Rugby League bringing its season opener to Las Vegas, or Major League Baseball sending its biggest stars to Japan, properties are recognizing the commercial value that bringing top-line events to international growth markets brings.
In this regard, One Championship is no different. Since January 2024, the promotion has staged fight cards in Japan (January 2024, March 2025), Lusail, Qatar (March 2024, February 2025), and, perhaps most prominently, Denver, US (September 2024).
The showcase in Denver, One 168, was the promotion’s second visit to the US city, having held a sold-out event at the city’s 5,000-capacity 1stBank Center in May 2023. Instead of that venue, the event was staged at the much larger Ball Arena, a testament to One’s growing prominence on the other side of the Pacific.
One 168 featured several top stars and was headlined by a bantamweight Muay Thai World Championship bout between Jonathan Haggerty and Superlek, both among the company’s biggest draws, as well as several US fighters lower down the card.
This reportedly led to the company banking around $1.28 million in gate receipts for the event, more than US wrestling promotion WWE earned in the same Arena that same week on its flagship Raw show, from over 8,500 tickets.
Much of the pre-event build-up was centered around UK fighter Haggerty and Thai superstar Superlek, with Scheler stating that a domestic link for the event’s host country is not necessarily vital to bringing interest if the company can relate its stars to fans internationally.
Internationalizing a sports promotion is a long game, Scheler concedes, as for all the work that can go into social media, at the end of the day, once it comes to the real world, seats need to be filled to run a sustainable business. That’s why having recognizable stars such as Haggerty, Superlek, Takeru, and Rodtang is so important.
Scheler comments: “You need athletes that are going to resonate, it doesn't necessarily mean that your athlete has to be from the country you're going to physically deliver the broadcast out of. It might be a cultural hook, might be a language hook, might just be the most compelling storyline for [the promotion], then I think, especially in the sport, you need really good coverage and like awareness.
“If you have good coverage and people are aware of your brand and you have the right athlete storylines, then we're going to take a look at whether it makes sense to physically bring an on-ground event and then assess the commercial opportunity there.”
In this regard, One’s social media strategy is vital. Where the likes of WWE and UFC can subsist on the value of a multi-decade forged name brand, upstart promotions that are still emerging in new markets need to first create a reason for fans to come.
He adds: “When one takes a look at a market, we take a look at it with a multi-year view. Developing a fandom is something that requires a lot of investment and a lot of engagement, very different than other industries, where you might just deliver a one-time use product, you really need to be willing to, you know, pulls on [the fans’] heartstrings or pulls on their pocketbook to come out, come to a show or turn on a broadcast, or use their time to spend with you versus something else.
“So, I think a mix of the right athletes, compelling story lines, something that's really going to get that market excited more than any other entertainment opportunity they have, and then how much awareness do we have in that market? And I think when we have those, then we start looking at venues.”
In this regard, the fact that One’s home market of South-East Asia is such a hotbed for martial arts talent is a direct contributor towards its ability to expand beyond that market.
This is best exemplified by the first announced headliner for One 173, its next international US event, which will feature a women’s Atomweight MMA World Championship unification bout between Stamp Fairtex of Thailand and Denice Zamboanga of the Philippines. Neither is US-born nor based in the country, but both are leading stars with the draw to anchor a flagship international event.
One's home events are still the cornerstone of this offering, with over 52 fight nights a year in Bangkok alone at the city's iconic Lumpinee Stadium featuring both home-grown and interntional talent, but what that domestic offering serves as a base for, the cultivation of new international stars, is what allows the promotion to keep going to new international markets, and how it manages to mobilize the international MMA fanbase to allow it to stay global.
Staying global
The ONE 168 event impact was localized around Denver, but was not strictly drawn from the city itself, with the promotion reporting that over half of the near capacity crowd, which notched close to 10,000 at the arena, travelled from outside of Colorado to attend, resulting in an economic impact of $15 million for the city.
“What we've seen in major markets that we've gone to is a willingness for fans, martial arts fans, to fly in from other communities and spend a couple of nights, do some shopping, check out the local tourist attractions, then come see an amazing martial arts show and competition,” Scheler comments.
“It's a competitive process. There are a lot of touring promotions out there. We pride ourselves on being one of the biggest, especially within our domain, but even within sports that can go to a market and sell out a stadium and bring in a variety of local fans, as well as international fans that are traveling into these communities, so generating a strong economic impact. It's important. “
When it comes to proving your worth to future host destinations, it is hard to top economic impact, hence why One soon after announced it is set to return to Denver for a third time later in 2025 for another numbered event, One 173, at the Ball Arena on August 1.
“It's a competitive process for these cities and these venues. If you're a venue operator, your job is to keep the lights on as many nights a week as possible and drive ticket sales, concessions, and parking.
"If you're an economic development board or a tourism board, you're looking to bring external business into your local community to drive hotel nights, restaurant tabs, merchandise, and shopping. So, as a promotion, we want to [prove that] these tourism boards are making a smart investment with One Championship.”
