ONE Championship Ranked in the Top 5 Most Valuable Combat Sports Properties in Latest Forbes Report

ONE Championship continues to prove why it is a force to be reckoned with amongst longtime combat sports properties per a study by Forbes last week. Based on the report by Sherdog, ONE Championship, founded in 2011, is ranked fourth by Forbes among the most valuable combat sports properties.

According to the report, ONE is currently valued at $1.3 billion with an estimated revenue of $140 million, behind only the UFC and sports entertainment properties WWE and AEW. PFL, another US-based MMA organization, comes only sixth on the Forbes list.

ONE, the world’s largest martial arts organization, has steadily grown its reach over the years, mounting events globally and showcasing the very best of martial arts in multiple disciplines. Mainly starting as an MMA organization, ONE has since diversified its offerings to feature the striking arts of Muay Thai and Kickboxing, submission grappling, and even featured a World Championship boxing match. 

Their out-of-the-box thinking has helped them produce innovative matches as well as the mixed rules super-fight between ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Champion Rodtang “The Iron Man” Jitmuangnon and MMA legend and now reigning ONE Flyweight MMA World Champion Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson.

The promotion prides itself on being home to the world’s best strikers, with a rich collection of World Champion fighters showcasing their talents on the promotion’s major shows and, since the beginning of last year, their weekly ONE Friday Fights series in the iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand

Also last year, it made its way to North America with a sold-out ONE Fight Night 10 spectacle in Broomfield, Colorado, which was an instant hit amongst the American crowd. To top that, ONE also attained a successful multi-year deal with Amazon Prime Video Sports to air its major events in U.S. primetime through Prime Video. 

As such, they added even more broadcasting partners last year – Sky Sports in the UK, Globo in Brazil, and Seven Network in Australia, among others, to grow their global reach to 190 countries. 

Despite their massive growth over the past couple of years, ONE Championship is showing no signs of slowing down

Last month, ONE made history when it returned to the Middle East for ONE 166: Qatar, where Anatoly Malykhin was crowned a three-division MMA World Champion after taking Reinier de Ridder’s middleweight belt to add to his heavyweight and light heavyweight straps. At the same time, “Sladkiy” became the first-ever MMA fighter to attain three-division world championship status. The promotion has also confirmed that it will make its return to the United States later this year with ONE 168: Denver on Friday, September 6.

To date, it is shaping up to be a blockbuster event with multiple World Champions in action. Reigning ONE Women’s Atomweight MMA World Champion Stamp Fairtex will headline the event, as she goes for two-division glory by challenging strawweight queen Xiong Jing Nan.

In the co-main event, flyweight Muay Thai king Superlek Kiatmoo9 is also aiming for a second World Title when he takes on Jonathan “The General” Haggerty for the ONE Bantamweight Muay Thai World Championship. 

With its wealth of talent in the roster across multiple disciplines and a thirst for the spectacular, expect ONE to inch closer to the top in the coming years. What do you make of ONE Championship’s big milestone?