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Back in November we highlighted a report from Deal Street Asia on ONE Championship’s potential funding woes, most notably that sources close to the promotion were speculating that the promotion could run out of operating cash by Q3 of 2024.
As such, it seems ONE has been trying to secure another round of investment from the Qatari government. Unfortunately, it also sounds like the climate for getting that deal may be none too pleasant for a company that appears to have yet to find a way to turn a profit since its inception in 2011.
The promotion has gone through rounds of layoffs in the past to stay afloat and has finally made moves for long promised international expansion, with an event in Broomfield, CO this past May and plans for an event in Qatar in early 2024. But even with past cost cutting measures and big goals for the future, it looks like there are other factors at play that may make everything more difficult for ONE.
ONE Championship lacking deliverables
A new report from Deal Street Asia (DSA) has outlined the struggles that ONE Championship is likely facing if it hopes to secure more funding from the Middle East. First and foremost, a former ONE executive (who refused to be identified), told the outlet that the first round of Qatari investment in 2021 was supposed to bring a whole series of Apex-like shows to the country.
“The idea [then] was that ONE’s Qatar shows would be akin to UFC’s Apex in Las Vegas,” the reported former ONE exec told DSA. “These would be shows with smaller seating capacity, but would look better on television because they were easier to fill.”
Instead, it seems what the Qatari government received was some destination spotlighting from ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong’s two seasons of The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition, released for streaming in Asia on Netflix. Viewership numbers for the first season have the show ranked 9,763 out of approximately 18,000 titles on the platform. Reports have since suggested that some core sponsors brought in by the Qatari government to underwrite the show (Qatar Airways and Ooredoo Qatar) pulled back their funding of ONE projects.
In DSA’s latest news, ONE has denied that there were any “specific deliverables” wrapped up in Qatar’s investment in the fight promotion. Meanwhile Sityodtong has officially announced that the first ONE show in the country will take place on March 1st at the Lusail Sports Arena. Maybe that will be enough to strengthen the bond and secure a new deal between them.
Is Qatar fading out of sportswashing picture?
A bigger problem for ONE Championship than the potential embarrassment rumored to be felt by the Qatari government for what could be considered a questionable investment, are the optics that Qatar does not appear to be leading the drive for sporting events in the Middle East at the moment.
Abu Dhabi has a long standing business partnership with the UFC, Bahrain is wrapped up with BRAVE CF, and Saudi Arabia has become the region’s biggest hot spot for sports investment, bankrolling not just the WWE and PFL, but a whole slew of upcoming international events, including the 2034 World Cup.
DSA spoke to at least one sports exec in Qatar who noted that many of his colleagues in the region have relocated to Riyadh for the money that the Saudi government is currently throwing at major showcase sporting events.
For all that hand-wringing, Qatar is still hosting the 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup and the 2030 Asian Games, and just wrapped up hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022 and the AFC Asian Cup in 2023. So it can’t be said that there’s no interest in the region in continuing to be seen as a force in the sporting world. But, if Qatar isn’t interested in funding ONE going forward it seems like other spenders in the region have already locked down their combat sports partners.
If that ends up meaning that ONE has most of their eggs in a single basket, then it’s not hard to see how 2024 could end up being a very difficult year.