ONE Championship has announced a broadcast deal with Amazon Prime. It will see 12 events a year shown live by the streaming service in the US and Canada.
Chatri Siytodtong announced the news on Facebook just now declaring that ‘Amazon Prime is bringing the world’s largest martial arts organization to the US, the world’s largest sports media market’:
More detail
He went into a little bit more detail about the deal in a press release,
“ONE Championship is thrilled to work with Prime Video, one of the largest premium sports content providers in the world, to bring our live events closer to fans in the United States and Canada. As the world’s largest martial arts organization, we believe our collaboration with Prime Video will allow us to reach a wider North American audience that is hungry for an authentic and differentiated product you simply cannot get with any other organization. We look forward to showcasing the absolute greatest martial artists on the planet, right here in the ONE Championship Circle and on Prime Video.”
Primetime audience
Last year the promotion put on a series of ONE on TNT events. These were broadcast in a primetime US slot, meaning that the live fights had to take place in the morning in Singapore.
Those events featured the biggest names on the roster including Demetrious Johnson, Eddie Alvarez and Shinya Aoki. ONE Championship is likely to try and pull out all the stops for the 12 live events on Amazon Prime, which will surely take place during prime time in the US.
There were rumours going around that Chatri would be announcing a live show in the US today. They proved to be wide of the mark but with ONE Championship no being broadcast on Amazon Prime it appears a matter of when, not if, the first event on American soil is booked.
Busy schedule
ONE Championship is currently putting on approximately 24 events a year. Assuming this schedule continues around half the shows will be on Amazon Prime.’
The over the top streaming service was launched in 2006 and has 175 million users. Marie Donoghue, Vice President of Global Sports Video at Amazon, said,
“We are proud to add exclusive coverage of ONE Championship events to our suite of marquee live sports offerings. In addition to offering a full suite of martial arts disciplines, ONE Championship shares our mutual commitment to elevate female athletes, boasting five reigning female world champions.”
