ONE Championship Names AbemaTV As Broadcast Partner For Japan
April 9, 2018
ONE Championship (ONE) has named Japanese internet TV station AbemaTV as broadcast partner in Japan to broadcast live events and digital content.
The partnership will cover more than 20 live ONE Championship events in 2018, as well as offer a reality TV series called “Surrogacy Battles”, which aims to discover fresh young Japanese martial arts talent.
The program will run 12 1-hour episodes featuring young martial arts prospects no older than 22 years of age. The winner of the show will receive JPY 3 million and a ONE Championship multi-bout contract amounting to over USD $100,000.
Chatri Sityodtong, Chairman and CEO of ONE Championship, stated: “I am pleased to announce ONE Championship’s partnership with AbemaTV. As sports media distribution experiences a digital shift, more and more viewers are opting for live digital content over traditional television mediums.
“Our mission is to unleash superheroes across Asia to ignite passion, hope, strength and dreams across all segments of society, and offering our unique Hi-Definition content for digital consumption is an integral part of that mission. We hope to provide AbemaTV subscribers compelling and engaging high quality content on their mobiles and computers. We are thrilled to partner with the largest internet TV station in Japan.”
Yuji Kitano, Executive Producer of AbemaTV, stated: “AbemaTV is proud to partner with ONE Championship, the worldwide leader of martial arts. Martial arts is deeply ingrained in Japanese culture. We have a very rich background and history of martial arts, and our people embody the true values of martial arts in their everyday lives. We are excited to showcase ONE Championship’s world-class content on our live sports channel. And in the second season of Surrogacy Battles, we will be searching for the next ONE Championship superstar in Japan.”
