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| (Image Source: The Jakarta Post/Group ONE Holdings) |
At the Qatar Economic Forum powered by Bloomberg held last June 22, 2022, Group ONE Holdings (ONE), parent company of Asia's largest mixed martial arts (MMA) organization ONE Championship and ONE eSports, and Media City Qatar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop a strategic long-term partnership, collaborating in the production and development of a wide range of global content in Qatar across multiple media sectors, including original programming, studio shows, and eSports, that will strengthen Qatar’s growing media ecosystem.
The partnership will commence by showcasing Qatar in the filming of Season 2 of the popular Netflix series The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition, a business reality show streamed in more than 150 countries Season 1 of The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition garnered an estimated 4 million viewers on its premiere broadcast night in 2021, outperforming other top-rated reality competition premieres, and was Asia’s most watched English-language reality premiere in 2021. The show also took home awards for “Best Non-Scripted Entertainment” and “Best Adaptation of an Existing Format” at the Asian Academy Creative Awards last year. ONE and Media City are also in discussions to develop and produce live sports programming, including studio shows that will enhance Qatar’s production capabilities while attracting world-class media companies and talent to the country. Leveraging Qatar’s strong infrastructure and global connectivity, ONE and Media City plan to create an eSports hub for developers and other key stakeholders across the gaming ecosystem.
Media City Qatar CEO Sheikh Ali bin Abdullah bin Khalifa Al-Thani stated, “We are very excited to announce a partnership with Group ONE Holdings which will bring a global content creator to Doha and strengthen Qatar’s media ecosystem. Media City is focusing on enabling innovative, creative media to flourish in Qatar and this partnership will be strategic in achieving this objective. We expect that this partnership will also create a path for other global IP content creators to consider Qatar as a hub to build their presence.” On the other hand, Group ONE Holdings Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong stated, “This partnership is extremely strategic as it marks our foray into the Middle East, a key market for ONE across all of our content offerings: general entertainment, martial arts, and eSports. We are excited to bring ONE closer to all our fans in Qatar and across the Middle East. Media City has big ambitions of establishing Qatar as a global media hub and we are committed to enhancing this vision while building world-class content in Qatar to serve millions of fans around the world.”
