Victorious soccer players do us proud in a year with few heroes

December 2014 will go down in history as the month when a group of young soccer players and their inspirational Thai coach single-handedly assimilated a divided nation, entrenched in a decade-long political warfare; something that politicians in this country have forgotten how to do. 

On December 20, in the second leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup, Thailand scored two late goals against the odds, which effectively ended the Kingdom’s 12-year wait to regain the trophy, with a 4-3 aggregate victory over our perennial rivals Malaysia on their turf. It was the stuff of dreams, material for a Hollywood director.

It was a day when the nation was completely awash in the colours of the Thai flag, not yellow, not red. People adored the flag as a symbol of genuine patriotism, not justification for a political ideal. Most important to the context of this article, TV ratings for that tournament final skyrocketed, and we witnessed what was apparently the highest Nielsen TV rating for 2014: 22.8. 

Ratings for the tournament increased exponentially from the first match that Thailand played (10.7) up until the final day when one out of every four Thai person was glued to the television spurring on their heroes. All seven of the matches played by the Thai national team got the highest TV ratings on both terrestrial analog and digital platforms.

The phenomena we witnessed had more implications than just cheering a popular sport. This country is desperately in need of heroes, not just sporting ones. 

Having analysed thoroughly who watched that final match, I can confidently conclude that more than half of the viewers who engaged in that programme do not follow soccer regularly. It was your average Thai person, throughout all life stages, every socio-economic status and gender. 

Women shared their interest almost as much as their male counterparts, partly because of a certain heartthrob in the national team. 

Online conversations took precedence on every social platform fathomable. Hashtags such as #affsuzukicup2014 and #chappuistheinfluencerofmyheart (in Thai) permeated the social space, with more than a million hits on Twitter (lab.in.th/thaitrend).

We have seen time and time again how sport really transcends society and has the power to integrate people.

In a year when the Consumer Confidence Index was the lowest in years, if we had an emotional indicator gauging our spirits, I’m sure it would have been the highest in a decade, thanks to our sporting heroes.

I think it is time that this nation, especially the government, stood up and created a sustainable blueprint that produces national heroes and leaders to drive the Kingdom ahead. The country would benefit econo-mically and emotionally, bringing about peace and prosperity to its people. We can find out later how many national-team jerseys have been sold since this victory and how many advertisers are rushing to be a part of this craze.

Allow me to reiterate, it does not have to be just about soccer, even though sport is a very important vehicle for driving people’s spirits. It can be anything, a proper system in place that produces leaders in all disciplines of society that brings about a positive spin.

I don’t want to preach, but if change is to occur for the better, the time is now, and the media will be an important vehicle for amplifying the spirits of this great nation. 

 

Pradonn Sirakovit is business group head of strategy & innovation, IPG Mediabrands.