ONE Championship, the Singapore-based mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion, has widened its global visibility after securing international sports network ESPN as its broadcast partner in Australia and New Zealand.
The multi-year agreement will see ONE Championship events air exclusively on Disney-owned ESPN, which is available in Australia via the Disney+ platform, as well as pay-TV operator Foxtel, its streaming service Kayo, and subscription service Fetch TV through its carriage deal.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
In New Zealand, ESPN is available on Disney+ and pay-TV heavyweight Sky New Zealand, which recently renewed its carriage deal with ESPN.
The deal includes rights to air ONE Championship’s flagship numbered events, monthly Fight Night cards, and the weekly Friday Fights series, spanning MMA, Muay Thai, kickboxing, and submission grappling.
However, select pay-per-view events are excluded from the agreement.
The broadcaster’s coverage and will start its coverage with Fight Night 40: Buntan vs Hemetsberger II, which will be aired live from Bangkok, Thailand, tomorrow.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataESPN replaces commercial broadcaster Seven and combat sports network Fite, which held rights to air ONE Championship events in Australia and New Zealand, respectively, in deals struck in 2023.
The new deal comes as ONE Championship looks to expand the visibility of the promotion globally, having secured a deal with UK pay-TV heavyweight Sky back in 2023. Since then, it has struck broadcast partnerships with Japan’s U-Next and US satellite broadcaster DirecTV.
Last year, One Championship chief operating John Scheler told Sportcal (GlobalData) that the promotion would focus on its international expansion, capitalizing on the digital era to build fan bases around the world using social media.
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.
Commenting on the strategy, Scheler said: “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.”
Read: One Championship: Internationalizing a promotion in the digital age
Meanwhile, rival mixed martial arts promotion UFC has announced a new partnership with food and beverage start-up Foodstory.
The partnership, brokered by international sports agency IMG’s licensing division, will see the pair develop a line of nutritionist-backed high-protein bars to be used by the promotion’s athletes and sold to consumers.
Research and development for the bar will be undertaken at the UFC’s performance institute in Las Vegas, which was opened in 2017, and will feature functional ingredients for the performance nutrition category.
Duncan French, Senior Vice President, UFC Performance Institute, said: “By bringing together the UFC Performance Institute’s experience working daily with the world’s best combat sport athletes and FoodStory’s ability to turn bold ideas into high-quality consumer products, we have a powerful combination.
“Through close collaboration, we have developed a protein bar that reflects how athletes train, fuel, and recover, and we are making this available to general consumers.”
