‘Biggest challenge is the determination to carry on,’ says Northampton founder of success story MMA TV

After six years have passed since a TV channel dedicated to giving a platform to MMA stars was created, the founder has shared his journey to making it a huge success.

Having amassed hundreds of millions of views, 39-year-old Siju Roseje says he “never expected it to grow as much as it did”.

Siju kickstarted his career as a sports agent managing professional athletes, mostly in the MMA and kickboxing sphere, and soon realised the best opportunity to get them exposure was on television.

With many athletes competing for the top spot, Siju saw the opportunity to set up his own channel, dedicated to the athletes he managed.

He said: “MMA TV’s growth has taken a lot of time and dedication as I did not know anything about television and had to start from scratch.

“The biggest challenge was having the determination to carry on when you’ve just started a self-funded project – particularly when the system goes down when you’re about to broadcast and you don’t know what’s happened.

“Even if you have 100 million streams, you can always do better and push for more – which is hard when you are producing in house content and there is a constant flow.”

Siju says it took three-to-four years to build up the right team, which is when things began to “run smoothly”.

This made the sidestep to launching an app easier, as they already had the knowledge and content to successfully get it off the ground.

Swiftly followed by the free television channel, MMA TV has now been able to work with companies like Samsung and LG – allowing their content to become “next level”.

Talking to Chronicle & Echo about the advice he would give to anyone thinking of starting a business, Siju said: “It has to be based on something you really enjoy and feel passionate about.

“You are more likely to give it 120 percent every single day and give it the consistency it deserves.”

One of Siju’s latest projects is a new series called ‘Fighters Go Dating’. Filming will be finished in a month’s time and it is likely to be streamed in a couple of months.

“There are lots of big and interesting personalities,” said Siju. “You never know what is going to happen when big personalities like that come together – it might explode.”

The founder, who lives in Abington, says as it is the first season it is likely to face challenges, but he and the team are “really excited” about what is to come.

An ‘Action Man’ series will also be hitting the MMA TV screens, which will document the journey of an MMA athlete moving from his sport to the film industry.

Like with the upcoming Action Man series, Siju’s career highlight has been having the opportunity to give a platform to athletes to perform – which allows them to better their lives and support their families.