“Getting it right” - Chatri Sityodtong talks about upcoming first ONE Championship event on US soil

ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong doesn’t mind waiting a bit before jumping straight into the United States and holding cards within its territory.

Amazon Prime Video and ONE Championship recently formed a massive multi-year partnership that brought the martial arts organization to the gigantic streaming platform. The deal was officially launched earlier this year with the first Amazon Prime Video card, ONE on Prime Video 1, back in August.

In an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Sityodtong revealed that the executives at Amazon Prime Video wanted to have the first ONE on Prime Video card to be held on US soil. Sityodtong and his group pushed back and suggested they could wait a little longer before putting on a show in the United States.

Sityodtong pointed out that while Amazon Prime Video already has partnerships with other properties such as the NFL, MLB, and WNBA, the company is new to combat sports. ONE Championship, too, would be making a huge jump if they immediately staged a show in the US.

Chatri Sityodtong said:

“We have 12 primetime US events with Amazon and ideally they want it all on-ground and we were the ones who said, ‘Okay wait, can we scale into it? It’s the pandemic, it’s COVID, it’s our first time in America, we want to get it all right.’ So I think in this situation, it’s not about coming as fast as you can but getting it right.”

He added:

“So our first show we want to make sure to get it right and then we build momentum from there. And you know Amazon also, they’re new to combat sports so they’re building a whole team, and again they’re experts in sports you can just see it in their team that they’ve hired. But they’re still relatively new to combat sports, so you want the whole partnership on both sides to be a well-oiled machine before you go full steam ahead.”

Since the deal between ONE Championship and Amazon Prime Video started in the middle of this year, only five shows were scheduled on the streaming platform in 2022. The full 12-show calendar will officially begin in 2023, which would be the year ONE Championship officially lands in the US.

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Chatri Sityodtong reveals ONE Championship has secured US venues for 2023 shows

While details have yet to be made public, Chatri Sityodtong did reveal that ONE Championship had already secured the venues for its US shows in 2023.

In the same interview with Helwani, Sityodtong said that he and his organization plan to hold more than one or two shows in the country.

The details, though, will be announced at a later date.

Chatri Sityodtong said:

“We’re planning a little bit more than [1 or 2 events in the first year]. We’ve locked down venues in a few locations and I just can’t say it right now. We have a few venues already locked down.”