Sports are back, and stronger than ever!
This July, it seems like every athlete in the country tightened their shoelaces and put their jerseys back on because a number of sporting events commenced. According to Capstone-Intel’s data gathered for July 16 to 31, sports was the 2nd most talked-about category in the country on social media, a four-place difference from July 1 to 15’s 6th place. In two weeks, there were over 10 million engagements with the topic, compared to the mere 875,000 scores it got in the first half of the month. What caused the jump?
Volleyball
PVL, or the Premier Volleyball League, continued to reign supreme among the sporting series in the country. With the 2023 PVL Invitational Conference holding its finals on July 30, it garnered a whopping 8.5 million engagements across the top three trends “pvl2023,” “theheartofvolleyball,” and “pvlononesports.” In the end, it is the Japanese team Kurashiki Ablaze that dethroned reigning champion team Creamline Cool Smashers, with the foreign team winning three of the five matches for the trophy. Cignal HD Spikers meanwhile earns the bronze, as the F2 Logistics Cargo Movers are unable to make the best out of their five matches.
Football
The Philippines Women’s National Team recently made history by scoring their first-ever points in a World Cup stint since their formalization in the 1980s. FIFA is the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, and it holds the World Cup, Football’s most prestigious award. Filipinas is the women’s national team, and they won the FIFA Women’s World Cup on July 25, 2023 against New Zealand when Sarina Brolden scored a match point. Thus, keywords such as “fifawwc,” “labanfilipinas,” “parasabayan,” “filipinastayo,” and “fwwc2023” garnered a total of 1.1 million engagements online, and the win put the country up to rank 46 in FIFA’s women’s standings. Sadly, the Filipinas lost to Norway in the July 30 match, therefore ending their campaign in the World Cup. With this record point and win though, the team returns to the country with their spirits higher than ever.
E-Sports
Third on the ranking list are e-sports, with a total of 350,000 engagements across the internet. Echo Proud from Echo Philippines are the dethroned champions in the World Cyber Games 2023, of which the championship took place on July 30, 2023. Losing 3-2, the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang players garnered over 250,000 engagements online with the trends “echo,” “echoloud,” and “echoproud.“ On the other hand, the trend “dota2” collected 58,000 engagements online when Polaris Esports and Neon Esports of the Philippines competed in the Phygital Games held last July 24 to July 27. Polaris was unable to advance to the quarterfinals after losing to Russia’s One More and Kazahkstan’s UALEIKUMNIHAO, while Neon got to the semi-finals, only losing to Peru’s Thunder Awaken. Taking third place on the esports ranking are Lupon WXC and Kuya Nic, which have gotten about 45,000 engagements since the Riyadh Masters 2023 commenced from July 19 to 30. Kuya Nic is one of the commentators and analysts, meanwhile, Lupon WXC is a Filipino-rooted gaming and e-sports company.
Final on the trend list is PBA on Tour, with 159,000 engagements online for the chain of exhibition games that the association is putting on. Interestingly, a sporting event that didn’t make the cut for the trending list is the Palarong Pambansa 2023, which is an annual sporting event for kids and teens in different schools, cities, and regions. It has been canceled since 2020, only now making a comeback— specifically opening the ceremony on July 29, as a competition on a nationwide scale.
Now we can surely say that sports are back in full force, and the public’s consumption and support for them haven’t waned. With it also being the middle of summer vacation, a lot more people can dedicate their time to tuning in and watching the games. With numerous national and international sporting events still coming our way, these numbers will hopefully keep up and pick up more.
