Women's volleyball will be used as a marketing tool alongside football by many brands on the back of Thailand's success, say media experts.
Thailand’s Pleumjit Thinkaow (left) and Onuma Sittirak (right) try to block against Japan in the final of the 2013 Asian Women’s Volleyball Championship. THANARAK KHOONTON
Thailand's victory over Japan in the 2013 Asian Women's Volleyball Championship final last month recorded a TV rating of 26.4, the highest in recent years, said Nielsen Thailand.
That was higher than hit soap operas such as Rang Ngao at 14.3 and Khun Chai Ratchanont at 15.1.
"Volleyball can be categorised as sports content for mass audiences the same as boxing and football thanks to an exciting game inspired by the women's national team," said Napaporn Jeatawattana, head of The Exchange, Mindshare's media trading arm.
The largest viewing group is male viewers aged 20 in urban areas at 37.4%, followed by men aged 20-49 at 31.1%.
Volleyball's TV rating doubled to 12-15% across all viewer segments in the semi-final between Thailand and China.
On the online platform, the volleyball buzz was mentioned almost 400,000 times via Twitter.
With the growing popularity of volleyball, related sports products and brands can use volleyball as a long-term marketing tool to communicate with target groups.
Thai AirAsia (TAA) recently joined with the Thailand Volleyball Association to become an official sponsor for the national team.
"It's part of TAA's sports marketing policy, which wants to build its brand regionally," Ms Napaporn said.
Many broadcasters are interested in acquiring volleyball broadcast rights.
Chalakorn Panyashom, the vice-president for creative marketing at Workpoint Plc, the SET-listed media and entertainment company, said the Volleyball World Championship was its first step in getting sport content.
It received good advertising revenue and strengthened its satellite TV channel Workpoint TV.
Attaphon na Bangxang, the chief programming officer at TrueVisions, said it has acquired broadcast rights for every volleyball competition through terrestrial-TV, pay-TV and online platforms.
TrueVisions has contacted volleyball federations for live broadcasts in Thailand for the three years from next year.
"Volleyball will be another killer content to strengthen our pay-TV platform apart from tennis, the Thai Premier League, badminton and golf even though we lost the English Premier League," Mr Attaphon said.