ONE Championship to invest up to US$50m to launch Asian eSports championship series

ONE eSports will feature multiple game titles and hold eSports events across Asia.

Singapore-based mixed martial arts organisation ONE Championship has entered into a joint venture with Japanese advertising agency Dentsu Inc, to invest up to US$50m to launch ONE eSports in 2019 in what it claims is Asia’s largest global eSports championship series.

ONE eSports will feature multiple game titles across the region and hold eSPorts events held alongside ONE Championship martial arts event in 2019. It will also produce dedicated eSports content from live event broadcasts, documentaries, reality shows, weekly magazine shows across it media broadcast platform.

“Our mission is to celebrate Asia’s eSports heroes on the global stage. The establishment of ONE eSports transforms ONE Championship into Asia’s largest producer of millennial sports content,”Chatri Sityodtong, Chairman and CEO of ONE Championship said in a statement.

Also read: Temasek joins US$166m funding for ONE Championship

Dentsu will be responsible for harvesting Japanese game developers’ desire to expand in eSports across Asia and help in the venture’s events in Japan. ONE eSports will also leverage Dentsu and Dentsu Aegis as its preferred marketing agencies for strategic marketing formulation and sponsorships around the world.

The alliances also involves the participation of lifestyle gaming brand Razer and Singtel who have also entered into partnership MOUs with ONE eSports.

Razer will lend its ecosystem of hardware, software and services to assist in organising eSports tournaments whilst Razer Pay will serve as the payment platform for the ticketing of tournaments and online sale of merchandise and content. eSports Mogul, a Razer portfolio company, will also provide the technical know-how for the development of an online platform to organise, manage and stage online eSports events.

ONE eSports will also explore working with the Singtel Group in a collaboration that will potentially include joint eSports marketing efforts, production and distribution of eSports content through the Singtel Group’s platforms, telco data bundle plans and online and offline payment services through direct carrier billing and telco wallets.