MMA promotion ONE Championship has announced distribution deals with seven media platforms for its upcoming spin-off programme The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition.
The deals are with Sony-owned pay-television channel AXN, covering Southeast Asia; Singaporean national broadcaster Mediacorp; Japanese streaming platform Abema; Indonesian free-to-air broadcaster KompasTV; Thai streaming platform Line TV; free-to-air broadcaster TV5 in the Philippines; and regional broadcaster Ho Chi Minh City Television in Vietnam.
The first season of The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition is expected to air in early 2021, according to media reports, and will run for 13 episodes.
The series will involve 16 contestants from around the world competing in a series of business and physical challenges. The winner will receive a $250,000 (€210,000) job offer to work directly under ONE Championship chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong for a year as his protégé in Singapore.
Each episode will feature a guest CEO from a major company. Guest CEOs confirmed for the first season include Zilingo’s Ankiti Bose, Patrick Grove from Catcha Group and iFlix, Grab’s Anthony Tan, and Everise’s Sudhir Agarwal.
Each episode will also feature a guest ONE Championship World Champion. Among those confirmed are Brandon Vera, Angela Lee, Demetrious Johnson, Ritu Phogat, Sage Northcutt, and Xiong Jing Nan.
Last week, the Singapore-based mixed ONE announced a digital content partnership with Kaskus, Indonesia’s largest online community and forum. ONE and Kaskus will collaborate on a variety of content initiatives on the Indonesian martial arts scene and Indonesian MMA athletes.