ONE Championship nearing new streaming deal for U.S. fight fans

A new Internet streaming deal is in the works for ONE Championship, a rep told MMAjunkie Radio.

Loren Mack, the promotion’s chief spokesperson, indicated the Singapore-based promotion will remain an online product for stateside fans. But the new deal will make it easier to watch fight cards.

“We should be announcing it pretty soon, a streaming deal in North America,” Mack said. “The reality is, even for live sports, we’re seeing everybody migrate toward the Internet.

“We do big business with our stream, and we’re looking to expand that.”

It costs about $10 to watch a ONE Championship fight card live via the promotion’s website. The promotion is largely followed by hardcore MMA fans and media. But overseas, events have a much larger footprint. Officials say more than 1 billion viewers can watch fights in more than 118 countries. Currently, FOX Sports, Setanta and ABS-CBN are among the international networks that host fights.

The promotion is pushing current women’s atomweight champion Angela Lee, who at 20 delivered a “Fight of the Year” candidate against Mei Yamaguchi at ONE Championship 42 and recently defended her title with a win over Yamaguchi. Another star is former DREAM champion Bibiano Fernandes, who demurred on a UFC offer to stay with ONE.

Next to the UFC, ONE Championship is the most well-traveled of MMA promotions, expanding into under-served international MMA markets in Thailand, China and Myanmar. ONE Championship CEO Victor Cui said friendships in the government and military have allowed him to reach markets that have gone untouched by the UFC. The promotion is backed by the Singapore government.

“I can’t speak about another organization or what they’re able to do, but I can talk about what we do and what we’re good at,” Cui said. “But I’ve been in sports media for over 20 years, been living in Asia for the last 11 years, and our team are just world-class professionals (and) the best in the industry across everything they do.”

MMAjunkie will have updates on ONE’s new streaming deal as they become available.

For more on the promotion’s upcoming schedule, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.

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