ONE Championship’s historic card in Tokyo draws 42 million viewers worldwide

The highly-stacked ONE: A NEW ERA card in Tokyo last March 31st was by far the most prolific ONE Championship event in the company’s near eight-year history.

Loaded with four World Championship bouts and 23 martial arts World Champions featured on the card, the Singapore-based promotion’s maiden show in Japan was dubbed as the biggest martial arts event in history.

The 15-bout card, which featured martial arts icons from all over the world such as Shinya Aoki, Eduard Folayang, Bibiano Fernandes, Angela Lee, Xiong Jing Nan, Demetrious Johnson, Eddie Alvarez, and Aung La N Sang, treated the fans in attendance at the historic Ryogoku Kokugikan to a martial arts spectacle for the ages.

As expected, the star-studded event delivered in terms of martial arts action, and it also delivered in terms of viewership.

According to ONE Championship Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong, ONE: A NEW ERA pulled in a whopping 41.9 million viewers all over the world.

“I’m thrilled to announce that ONE: A New Era in Japan broke a new record viewership high for ONE Championship with 41.9m viewers from around the world,” Sityodtong shared on his Facebook page.

ONE Championship is broadcast to over 140 countries to a potential 2.6 billion viewers worldwide and ONE: A NEW ERA was shown through a multitude of platforms, including on free television, through streaming partners such as the B/R Live App and the ONE Super App, and on Facebook.

As impressive as the number is, Sityodtong admits that it came short of their initial target.

“While it did not hit the target of 50m that my team and I had set out to achieve when we decided to throw this mega event in Tokyo, I am full of gratitude and appreciation to the greatest fans in the world,” he said.

Apart from the massive numbers in viewership, Sityodtong added that ONE: A NEW ERA was also a hit on social media as it became a trending topic on Twitter in a number of countries.

“ONE Championship even trended #1 or #2 on Twitter in various countries such as US, Japan, Singapore, Australia, etc during that show.”

Moving forward, Sityodtong shared that he hopes to be able to attract more than double the viewers of ONE: A NEW ERA for every ONE Championship event.

“For perspective, our viewership averaged only 700k viewers per event in 2015. Our 3 year goal is to achieve an average of 100m viewers per event,” Sityodtong revealed.

“It might sound crazy, but I work with the best team on the planet!” he added.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 4/16/2019.