Hua Fung Teh, the Co-Founder and President of ONE Championship
Doha: Following the huge success of the ONE:166 Qatar event in March this year, ONE Championship has cultivated a significant following of fans eagerly anticipating the next event, and many young people are inspired to pursue a career in MMA.
During his recent visit to Qatar for the Qatar Economic Forum, Hua Fung Teh, the Co-Founder and President of ONE Championship, one of the world’s largest sports organizations, shared insights into the organization’s future plans in an exclusive interview with The Peninsula.
On the sidelines of the Qatar Economic Forum, Teh, a former leader at the RSAF and at Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, praised Qatar’s role as a business hub that connects investors globally. “The forum has been great. It’s our third time here at the Forum,” he stated.
“This is a great place not just to connect the Qatari ecosystem to the rest of the world. It also is a great platform for the world to connect with each other,” he added.
ONE:166 Qatar 'exceeded expectations'
Teh, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2015, told The Peninsula that the success of the ONE:166 Qatar event exceeded their expectations. “The stadium was at near capacity, which was great, so for us to have such high attendance was a very pleasant surprise.”
The event not only captivated local audiences but also garnered extensive global media coverage.
“That was a global buzz,” Teh said.
“Everyone was very proud of it. The broadcast to over 195 countries enabled the global audience to see the beauty of the Lusail Sports Arena and the beauty of this event in Qatar.”
According to the organization, “ONE 166 drew 18 million audience from live and first-air across broadcast and digital, amongst the top 5 events since ONE X in 2022. ONE 166’s total audience was 34% higher than ONE Fight Night 10, which drew the highest live and first-air audience among all instalments of the organization’s ONE Fight Night series”
He highlighted the significance of featuring a mix of international and regional talent at the event in Qatar as a key factor that made the event go viral and succeed globally: “There were guys from Russia, India, and all over America, but there were also 6 fighters from the MENA region.”
Qatar may host ‘Road to ONE’
Regarding expanding its popularity base and exploring talents, ONE Championship hosts a series of events called Road To ONE (RTO). RTO is a global recruitment league that hosts martial arts events worldwide. These events feature each region’s most promising homegrown talent and often include single-elimination tournaments where these martial artists compete to win a six-figure contract with ONE Championship.
“Maybe we can do a Road to One in the MENA, hosted in Qatar,” Teh said.
“There are plans on the way. We are definitely coming back to Qatar,” he said
Global outreach and charitable efforts
Beyond its success as a sports organization, ONE Championship has dedicated itself to charitable works, partnering with Global Citizen, the world’s largest social action platform aimed at ending extreme poverty.
Through this pioneering collaboration, ONE Championship leverages its extensive fanbase across Asia to address pressing global issues such as education, food & hunger, health, and gender equality.
Teh explained the selection of athletes as ambassadors for Global Citizen, noting, “Many of our athletes grew up in emerging markets and did not come from affluent backgrounds. They can inspire many young people in similar situations to dream big and push themselves to achieve their best.”
From sports enthusiast to global sports leader
Teh has always been a sports enthusiast, growing up playing basketball and taekwondo.
His passion for sports became part of his business when he started his first sports project with Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry as he helped to execute the first F1 Grand Prix night race in 2008.
Since he was working in the investment business at a big American private equity firm called Tpg, he was trying to invest in ONE Championship, which was a very small company at the time, 7 years ago.
Teh said he liked the vision of the CEO and founder Chatri Sityodtong , which encouraged him to invest in ONE Championship, seeing it as “an opportunity to take something that was based in the region of Asia and create something that the world enjoys and that can really impact the world.”
Now, as ONE Championship has become the world’s largest martial arts organization, broadcasting globally to over 190 countries with an extensive list of broadcast partners, Teh shared his vision of the challenging future to stay on top.
He said, “Sports is a global product; it is a game of incumbents. Once you’re established, it’s very difficult to be replaced. I think that the difficult part is you have to get to the top first. You have to build the product, build the brand, build the distribution, and then once you get into that top timeline, there are so many ways to monetize.”
Underscoring the non-stop increase of ONE Championship brand, Teh said that “when you have a brand that people love and that people follow, and that people feel attached to, you can serve them in many, many different ways, a game, a drink, and events. We even have a deal with META for a VR product,” Teh elaborated.
“The reach keeps growing too. It’s not just about the money but also about expanding our audience.”
Teh concluded his remarks by emphasizing his strong commitment to Qatar’s future, expressing hopes to not only continue hosting events but also to establish training academies and undertake more projects.
This underscores the robust relationship between the organization and its Qatari partners.
“We want to essentially continue deepening our roots here,” Teh concluded.
