Sports Boom

Time to Focus on Upgrading Sports Marketing, Diplomacy

Sports fans seem to be ever happier Monday with a flurry of good news on excellent performances by Korean sports stars. Lee Seon-hwa captured the Women’s World Match Play Championship, becoming the first South Korean to win the $2 million tournament founded in 2005. Lee’s victory came in one week after Pak Se-ri won the LPGA Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic on July 15.

Pak earlier delighted the Korean people by becoming the first Asian to join the World Golf Hall of Fame in June. This year alone, four Korean female golfers grabbed LPGA titles including Kim Mi-hyun and Kim Young. Korean women fielding in the Match Play numbered 21, one-third of the total participants who included world famous players, like Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa.

Choi Kyung-ju who snatched the title at the PGA AT&T National Championship early this month, again, set a new record by becoming the first Korean to be ranked within top 10 at the British Open Championship Monday (Korean time). Wie Chang-soo came in second in the U.S. Bank Championship, his best performance in the PGA tours. In baseball, Seo Jae-weong of Tampa Bay Devil Rays showed signs of recovery from a long-term slump by lifting his team to beat Indianapolis Indians, hurling a scoreless eight innings.

All these brilliant performances were taken to be further festive as they were added by the Korean national football team’s defeating of Iran 4-2 in penalty shootout on Sunday night for the Asian Cup match in Kuala Lumpur. The current sport boom is encouraging, as it helps enhance the national prestige in international community. We hope the recent festive mood in sports arena will help promote people’s morale, as well, which has been dampened following PyeongChang’s failed bid to host 2014 Winter Olympics, edged by Sochi of Russia.

Manchester United of England has greatly contributed to arousing the football boom here since they visited for a friendly match with Seoul FC on July 20. Many Korean fans were enthusiastic about the team, enchanted by the players’ dazzling technique and game management tactics coupled with relentless fighting spirit.

They didn’t side with the Seoul FC, only. They gave rounds of applauses to Man United players like Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo who scored goals in the match. Despite Man United midfielder Park Ji-sung having been benched due to knee injury, many Koreans applauded the English players for their gracious manners in addition to magnificent skills.

Outside the ground, the Man United has engaged in outstanding sports marketing activities aimed at attracting more Korean fans while further polishing its image as the top-level team in the premier league. They braved rains to provide fans with autography services, for instance. Man United has already become an icon of successful sports business. It has been focusing on customer-first management by, for instant, recruiting promising star players at the cost of huge amount of money. Equipped with overseas branches and its own local broadcasting system, it has more than 75 million fans around the world.

Now it is time for sport authorities and relevant concerns to put priorities on learning and implementing advanced marketing tactics and activities in overseas markets to promote local sports and raise sports stars. Toward that end, strengthening sport diplomacy is important and that is the only way for the nation not to repeat the heartbreaking failure in its bid for the winter Olympics.