Multi-year agreement provides 24/7 monitoring of major social platforms during live events, with rapid takedown of unauthorised streams

ONE martial arts

Martial arts organisation ONE Championship has selected Friend MTS as its global social media anti-piracy partner.

The agreement provides live and post-event monitoring and enforcement across social platforms, to protect global broadcast partnerships and D2C streaming operations.

ONE Championship is headquartered in Singapore and its content reaches fans in more than 195 countries.

It licenses to broadcast and streaming partners alongside its own D2C streaming service. As it scales its D2C offering, a critical strategy is protecting the commercial value and integrity of its live events across every distribution path.

Under the multi-year agreement, Friend MTS will provide 24/7 monitoring of major social media platforms during ONE’s live events, enabling the rapid identification and takedown of unauthorised streams.

This is paired with post-event enforcement to identify illegal sources and disrupt long-tail piracy.

The partnership started on ONE SAMURAI 1, the largest event in the organisation’s history.

Across the live broadcast window and subsequent days, Friend MTS identified and removed unauthorised streams and videos at scale across social media and the open web, with the overwhelming majority originating on social platforms, amassing millions of views.

Friend MTS pursued immediate action on every link submitted for enforcement by ONE and its broadcast partners, protecting both partner-licensed content and the D2C audience.

Shane McCarthy, CEO of Friend MTS, said: “ONE Championship is one of the most ambitious sports brands in the world, and we are delighted to support their international growth. For APAC live sports rights holders building global audiences, social media is one of the key piracy vectors where the audience watches – and where the pirates watch them. You cannot scale a premium live sports business without making anti-piracy a core part of your strategy – ONE understands that better than most. Live combat sports demand the fastest possible enforcement on social media and the open web, together with the ability to scale up for a single headline event without missing a beat. That is exactly what our team and our technology are built to do.”