Chatri Sityodtong Slams ONE Championship’s Critics – ‘Haters, Naysayers, Doubters’
Chatri Sityodtong, ONE Championship’s founder, has rejected claims that the organization is losing money.
Those comments followed an article claiming ONE Championship had ‘weak financials,’ as Qatar felt ‘embarrassed’ by their association with them. Those are not the only reports showing that the organization was struggling. Bellator’s Mike Kogan stated that the organization would be out of business. The co-creator of the UFC, Campbell McLaren, also stated Bellator had made a $35 million loss in 2023.
One Championship’s Futre
“They’re (ONE Championship) gonna go out of business. These people scammed everybody they could scam. They’ve run out of people to scam. It’s the truth. I mean come on. 10 years. You can’t be a start-up for 10 years. Jesus Christ. At some point, you’ve got to start showing something. So, they’re gonna go out, so where’s there to go? There’s nowhere else to go,” Kogan said
Sityodtong hit back at those suggestions as he indicated plans for over 60 events in 2024. The aim was to expand into Europe, the United States, Japan, and Qatar, focusing heavily on MMA. Sityodtong felt the current criticism was nothing new.
Sityodtong Reacts
“For the last six or seven years, there have been haters, naysayers, doubters, or whatever you want to call it. But, every year we hit a new record high in every metric as I mentioned, it is going to be no different this year. Elon Musk went through it with Telsa, and Jeff Bezos went through it with Amazon. When you are doing things that are breaking records and making history, you are going to attract good and bad attention, it’s part of the journey.
“It’s been going on for six, seven years and we have hit record highs every single time. It is just par for the course, if you think about how much negative press our biggest competitor, the UFC gets, it’s the same thing. At the scale we are at, we are the world’s largest martial arts organization, and we are broadcasting live to 190 countries every single week with the biggest broadcast partners around the world, whether it’s Amazon in the US, Globo in Brazil, Sky Sports in the UK, the list goes on and on. When you are widely distributed all around the world, nothing will ever be 100 percent incredible PR,” Sityodtong stated
The increasing competition in the MM sphere has put pressure on ONE Championship to perform. Both the UFC and PFL/Bellator have managed to gain an entrance into Saudi Arabia to increase their brand. If ONE Championship wants to become an MMA leader, it will have to do something similar. But before that can happen, it must deliver on its 2024 plans to continue making it a competitive venture. And there is no getting away from that.
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