ONE Championship registers rapid growth in Asia

It all started in 2011, and now the largest mixed martial arts promotion in Asia, ONE Championship, is growing at a rapid rate that even its top honchos never thought was possible.

With more than 200 fighters in its roster and frequent events all across Asia, ONE Championship is set to cross the $1 billion dollar valuation mark in about 12 to 18 months according to the company's chairman, Chatri Sityodtong.

"We are growing at triple digit growth rates and the market opportunity is massive in Asia," said Sityodtong. "There are 4.1 billion people who live here and our growth opportunities are limitless."

In its last visit to the Philippines in April, ONE Championship had put up a stacked fight card with a welterweight title fight between highly touted Ben Askren and Nikolay Aleksakhin of Russia headlining the event.

Last December, the promotion also gave Filipino fans yet another reason to religiously follow MMA when Fil-Am fighter Brandon Vera defeated Paul Cheng to capture the inaugural ONE Heavyweight title.

Despite all that, the MMA promotion giant is only getting started, said Sityodtong.

"Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam and a few other new countries are on the map in the coming years. Equally important is that we will be expanding our footprint in China this year and beyond,” Sityodtong added.

"We have been registering triple digit percentage annual growth rates in revenues since we started five years ago. Compared to most companies around the world in any industry, ONE Championship is doing very well. However we are still far from where I would like us to be," he said. —KG, GMA News