打造亞洲體育王國的哈佛畢業生

Chatri Sityodtong survived on a diet of budget Korean buffets while an undergraduate at Harvard. Now, the protean martial arts expert, former internet entrepreneur and one-time hedge fund manager wants to create the biggest and most lucrative sporting spectacle in Asia, the world’s most populous region.

差立?西尤堂(Chatri Sityodtong)在哈佛讀大學本科時，曾經靠廉價韓國自助餐苦撐。如今，身上貼有多個標籤——武術專家、前互聯網企業家以及曾經的對衝基金經理——的他，想打造亞洲最大、最有利可圖的體育盛事。亞洲是全世界人口最多的地區。

The glitzy One Championship mixed martial arts (MMA) competition, which 46-year-old Mr Chatri founded and heads, hit Singapore at the end of May and is due in Myanmar, Macau and Malaysia over the next few months. Mr Chatri, who was raised in Thailand, believes the championships have the potential to attract 2bn television viewers and sellout events in a different Asian city every weekend.

綜合格鬥賽事ONE冠軍賽(ONE Championship)於5月底落地新加坡，並且將在未來幾個月進入緬甸、澳門和馬來西亞。該賽事由現年46歲的差立創辦並執掌。在泰國長大的差立認爲，ONE冠軍賽有望吸引20億電視觀衆，亞洲各個城市每週末的比賽門票都會售罄。

“If you look at the history of sports in Asia, we’ve always only imported,” he says, pointing to the popularity of English football, US basketball and Formula One motor racing. “So I had a very simple thesis: I said, ‘Man, it’s time for Asia to have its own sports league — and Asia’s been the home of martial arts for 5,000 years.’”

“如果你看看亞洲體育史就會發現，我們一直都只是引進賽事，”他表示，並指出英格蘭足球、美國籃球和一級方程式(Formula One)賽車的人氣。“所以我產生了一個非常簡單的命題：我說，‘現在輪到亞洲推出自己的體育聯盟了——5000年來，亞洲一直是武術之鄉。’”

Mr Chatri says five-year-old One Championship achieved record viewer figures for its show in Manila in April. But its finances remain closely guarded: he says only that the event is now “very, very close to profitability”, with revenues that are in “eight figures and growing very rapidly”. Investment in One exceeds $50m, and includes a stake bought last year for an undisclosed sum by Temasek, the Singapore state investment fund.

差立稱，已經創辦5年的ONE冠軍賽，在今年4月馬尼拉的一場比賽中刷新了觀衆紀錄。但該賽事的財務狀況仍然嚴格保密：他只是說該賽事如今已經“非常接近盈利”，收入達到“8位數，並且增長非常迅速”。ONE冠軍賽的投入超過5000萬美元，其中包括去年新加坡國有投資基金淡馬錫(Temasek)收購了該賽事的部分股份，具體金額未被披露。

James Goyder, a journalist who has covered combat sports in Asia for a decade, says One has had to overcome a “lot of cynicism” from people who “expected it to fold after a couple of shows” like previous similar big ventures.

在亞洲報道格鬥賽事長達10年的記者詹姆斯?戈伊德(James Goyder)表示，一些人“預計該賽事在兩場比賽後就會罷手”，就像之前類似的大型賽事一樣，ONE冠軍賽不得不克服這些人的“冷嘲熱諷”。

“I think those people underestimated Chatri,” Mr Goyder says.

“我認爲那些人低估了差立，”戈伊德表示。

One Championship is the synthesis of Mr Chatri’s two long-time obsessions: martial arts and financial investment. He is a practitioner of Muay Thai — Thai boxing — and he took the name Sityodtong in honour of the master at whose training camp he studied.

ONE冠軍賽綜合了差立的兩大長期嗜好：武術和金融投資。他是一名泰拳(Muay Thai)手，他給自己取名西尤堂是爲了紀念他學習泰拳時的訓練營創辦者。

His life changed when his “quite well-to-do” family in Bangkok lost everything in the financial crisis that affected Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries in the late 1990s.

他在曼谷的家原本“相當富有”，但在上世紀90年代末肆虐泰國及其他東南亞國家的金融危機中，他家失去了一切，他的人生道路由此轉變。

He had a place at Harvard, but little money to live on. He recalls visiting an all-you-can-eat Korean buffet that cost “three dollars and change” and became “the big highlight of the day”. His mother even lived with him in his university dormitory because the family had lost their home.

他考入了哈佛，但沒有錢生活。他回憶起自己花“3塊多美元”去吃韓國自助餐，這成了“那天最爽的時候”。他的媽媽甚至和他一起睡在大學宿舍裏，因爲他們無家可歸。

Mr Chatri acknowledges that — for all the financial stress of that period — he still had the advantages of education and connections. He went on to study at Harvard Business School and to co-found an internet software start-up, which he later sold.

差立承認，儘管那段時間承受的經濟壓力很大，但他仍然接受了良好的教育並且建立了人脈。接着他就讀哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School)，和其他人共同創辦了一家互聯網軟件初創公司，後來他出售了這家公司。

He then spent 10 years in the hedge fund industry but recalls finding the world of pure finance “empty”. He was ready to act on his insight about the gap in the market for big-money sports in Asia. “Every region of the world has several multi-billion-dollar sports properties entrenched in society and culture and tradition — and I see no difference here,” he says.

之後他在對衝基金行業工作了10年，但是他發現純粹的金融世界是“空虛的”。他準備根據自己對亞洲體育市場缺口的認識有所作爲。“全世界每個地區都有多個價值數十億美元的體育資產深深根植於社會、文化和傳統之中——我不認爲這裏有任何區別，”他表示。

Mr Chatri presents One Championship as a “responsible” outfit, compared with western combat sports, whose “entire marketing platform is focused on glorifying the fights, the violence, the blood, the antagonism”.

差立把ONE冠軍賽標榜爲一家“負責任的”機構，相比之下，西方格鬥運動的“整個營銷平臺注重的是讚美格鬥、暴力、血腥和敵意”。

He casts the event in a social role by featuring the “inspiring” life stories of fighters who have sometimes come from grinding poverty.

他藉助那些出身貧寒的拳手“鼓舞人心”的人生故事，爲該賽事賦予了社會意義。

Purses per fight range from $5,000 for an entry-level fighter to $300,000 or more for a top name — riches in a martial arts world full of stories of fighters being exploited by unscrupulous promoters. He says most events have been sell-outs or close to full in stadiums with capacities typically between 5,000 and 20,000.

每場比賽的出場費從初級拳手的5000美元，到頂級拳手的逾30萬美元不等——在拳手經常被不道德的籌辦者剝削的武術界，這是可觀的財富。他表示，絕大多數比賽都座無虛席或接近滿座，體育場館的容納人數通常在5000至2萬人之間。

Mr Chatri says One Championship is made for changing sports viewing habits as fans have moved away from television and on to smartphones. “No one is going to watch a 90-minute soccer game on their mobile device,” he says. “But our contact is three [five-minute] rounds per fight and 80 per cent of our fights end before that, through either a knockout or submission, a finish.”

差立表示，隨着粉絲遠離電視、轉向智能手機，ONE冠軍賽處於有利地位，能夠適應不斷變化的體育觀賽習慣。“沒人會在移動設備上觀看90分鐘的足球賽，”他稱，“但我們的比賽是每場3回合（每回合5分鐘），80%的比賽結束得更快，要麼是一記KO（技術性擊倒），要麼是認輸。”

Nevertheless, television is still part of One’s strategy. It broadcasts via a mix of free-to-air television, cable and $9.99 event livestreams. The company says it now has a broadcast footprint in 118 countries with a potential 1bn viewers, while its social media video views have grown from 312,000 in 2014 to a projected 314m in 2017, based on company forecasts from data gathered by Nielsen, Facebook and Repucom.

儘管如此，電視仍然是ONE經營策略的一部分。ONE通過免費電視、有線電視以及9.99美元的賽事直播的混合方式進行播放。該公司稱，ONE冠軍賽如今在118個國家落地，潛在觀衆10億人。與此同時，根據該公司對尼爾森(Nielsen)、Facebook和Repucom收集的數據所做的預測，其社交媒體視頻觀看次數將從2014年的31.2萬人次增至2017年的3.14億人次。

The company already bills itself as the largest sports media property in Asia and aims to build revenues further through brand licensing, among other means, for products such as protein shakes and video games, Mr Chatri says.

該公司已經自我標榜爲亞洲最大的體育媒體資產，差立表示，打算通過蛋白粉和視頻遊戲等產品的品牌授權等其他方式，進一步創收。

It is too early to judge if Mr Chatri will hit his target of listing the company in New York or Hong Kong. But he reckons he has already proved his central idea that Asian audiences will flock to see performers of Asian heritage do battle in Asia.

現在判斷差立是否會達到讓公司在紐約或香港上市的目標，爲時尚早。但他認爲自己的核心觀點已得到證明，即亞洲觀衆將蜂擁觀看亞洲的武術傳承者對戰。

“I’ll just say it’s tribal,” he says. “People want to root for people who look like them, eat like them, think like them, live life like them — and that’s resonating.”

“我只會說這是部落傳統，”他稱，“人們希望支持那些長得像自己，飲食習慣、思維模式和生活模式和自己一樣的人——而這正在產生共鳴。”