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In many ways, building a global sports media property from scratch is like building a global hotel chain from scratch. First, you have to build all of the buildings in each country. During the investment phase, the focus must be 100% on world-class construction of the best buildings for the long term. A startup global hotel chain would have to invest billions for years before they could start charging guests to stay at peak room rates with maximum capacity utilization. However, once all of these buildings are completed and operating at full service levels across the globe, the monetization opportunities are significant.
The major twist to this analogy is that global sports media properties take far longer to build than real estate projects do, but the rewards and opportunities are far greater. Once construction is complete for a global sports media property, the monetization opportunities at scale are limitless - media rights, apparel, games, gyms, energy drinks, manga, movies, TV shows, merchandise, eSports, brand licensing, and much more. In this era of technology, global sports media properties are essentially tech media businesses; they can achieve global scale with minimal marginal cost. And for a tech media business like ONE Championship, revenues can easily skyrocket 10x or more in a single year. This global scaleability is one of the reasons why some of the world's smartest investors like Sequoia Capital, Temasek, Greenoaks, and other blue chip institutions invested in excess of US$250 million into ONE Championship, and gave it a valuation in the billion dollar range. And it is only the beginning.
Luckily, I spent almost a decade on Wall Street as a global hedge fund manager, buying, selling, and shorting companies all over the world. As a result, I knew what a good business model was, and what a bad business model was even before I started ONE Championship. At scale, global sports media properties rank among the best business models on the planet; they are super asset-light, IP-heavy businesses with huge scaleability, huge margins, huge returns on invested capital, and huge cashflows. The biggest global sports media properties also have massive economic moats; they have significant sustainable competitive advantages because they are platform businesses with a complex ecosystem that is entrenched into the fabric of society, culture, and business. Of course, the catch is that they are incredibly hard to build and that they take a long time to create.
In 7 years, ONE Championship has become the world's fastest growing global sports media property in history in terms of reach, frequency, and engagement metrics across traditional and digital media; these 3 pillars are the most important key success factors for any media property. 3 years ago, ONE Championship had an average of only 700,000 viewers per event. Our latest event, ONE: Kingdom of Heroes, drew 25 million viewers. While I am full of gratitude and appreciation for this extraordinary growth, I also know that it is only the beginning of our journey. Our sacred mission is to unleash real-life superheroes who ignite the world with hope, strength, dreams, and inspiration. I count my blessings every day for this precious opportunity to live the life of my dreams. #gratitude #WeAreONE
