ONE Championship makes entry into Esports arena

Singapore

AFTER years of running mixed martial arts (MMA) events, Heliconia Capital-backed ONE Championship is now into the lucrative Esports space with its first planned events for the 2019-2020 season, helmed by new ONE Esports chief executive Carlos Alimurung.

Heliconia is a Temasek Holdings subsidiary.

The new venture will kick off with a hybrid MMA-martial arts Esports event in Tokyo and a pair of Southeast Asian Dota 2 competitions.

"In South-east Asia there are over 100 million gamers, a third of whom are Esports enthusiasts," said Mr Alimurung. "It's the fastest growing segment and a very big market."

ONE Esports will host its own Dota 2 Invitationals here at the Indoor Stadium in December, and again in Jakarta come April next year. Each invitational will feature a prize pool of US$500,000.

In addition to the Dota competitions, ONE Esports will host a commemoration for ONE Championship's 100th event, to be held in Tokyo this October. The ONE Martial Arts Fan Fest will feature both martial artists as well as Tekken and Street Fighter Esports players competing and interacting with fans.

"There's a lot of crossover between Esports enthusiasts and fans of MMA," said Mr Alimurung.

A lot of Esports titles, like Tekken, are highly relatable to MMA fans, and 20 per cent of Esports viewers in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Singapore and Japan are interested in MMA, he said.

ONE Championship founder, chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong, added that the company is "committed to bringing its same brand of large-scale event production and live broadcast capabilities, unique world-class content production, global media distribution, storytelling expertise, and marketing experience to ONE Esports."

ONE Esports is hoping especially to leverage its experience in highlighting martial artists' hard work and insisting similar training for Esports competitors, said Mr Alimurung.

"In many respects it's very similar, but people under-appreciate how hard it is to be an Esports athlete," he said. "Hundreds and hundreds of hours go into practising the game, studying the game . . . we want to celebrate that process, that discipline, that hard work that Esports athletes endure to get to the top."

Mr Alimurung believes there is "lots of headroom for growth" for Esports globally, where Esports currently only comprises 1 per cent of total gaming revenue, in South-east Asia specifically.

Niko Partners' Greater Southeast Asia Mobile Games Report projected that the combined PC online and mobile games revenue in the region will grow from US$4.4 billion in 2018 to US$7.5 billion in 2022, with Esports being the No 1 driver of PC gaming growth in particular.