Kia Tigers, winner of the Korean Series, a ‘money cushion’ with 7.8 billion won in dividends and bonuses

The Kia Tigers, who won their 12th Korean Series (KS) championship, are sitting on a money cushion worth 7.8 billion won, including the winning dividend and bonus given by the parent company.

According to the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) on the 29th, this year’s dividend amount to be paid to Kia, which won the professional baseball regular league and Korean Series the previous day and won the overall championship, was confirmed to be 5.25 billion won.

In this year’s postseason (PS), 16 games were held, including 2 wild card games, 5 semi-playoff games, 4 playoff games, and 5 KS games, and a total of 353,550 spectators visited the baseball stadium. Ticket revenue earned by the KBO was approximately 14.6 billion won, significantly exceeding the level of 2012 (10.39222 billion, 15 games), which recorded the highest ever revenue.

According to Article 47 of the KBO League regulations, the five teams that advanced to the PS will share the remainder of the PS admission revenue, excluding all expenses incurred in conducting the event. First, the first-place team in the regular season takes 20% of the dividend, and the remaining amount is distributed to the KS winning team 50%, the runner-up team 24%, the team that lost in the playoffs 14%, and the team that lost in the semi-playoffs 9%.

Accordingly, the amount allocated to the winning team, Kia, also jumped significantly. Of this year’s PS profits, 8.75 billion won, which is the remaining amount excluding 40% of general expenses, will be shared among the five teams. Kia receives 1.75 billion won first for taking first place in the regular season, and by winning the KS, it is expected to take an additional 3.5 billion won, half of the remaining 7 billion won, bringing total profits to 5.25 billion won.

LG Twins, who won the combined championship last year, received approximately 2.943 billion won in dividends. Kia received dividends approximately 1.8 times more than this amount.

In addition, Kia can receive additional bonuses from the parent company. According to the bonus regulations of the KBO secretariat and the 10 teams, the winning team’s parent company can pay up to 50% of the total dividends received by the baseball team as a winning bonus.

If the parent company pays a bonus equal to the upper limit, Kia will receive approximately 2.625 billion won more in PS dividends, resulting in a total of 7.88 billion won in dividends and bonuses this season.

Meanwhile, the KS runner-up team Samsung Lions received 1.68 billion won, the playoff losing team LG received 980 million won, the semi-playoff losing team KT Wiz received 630 million won, and the wild card losing team Doosan Bears received approximately 210 million won. Dividends are expected to be paid.

Seong Jin-woo, Hankyung.com reporter politpeter@hankyung.com