All fall baseball games sold out… Unstoppable ‘box-office success’

A scene from the 4th semi-playoff game between LG Twins and KT Wiz held at Suwon KT Wiz Park in Gyeonggi Province on the 9th. On this day, 17,600 seats were sold out. The postseason continued to be sold out for 11 consecutive games, starting from Game 1 of the Korean Series last year. News 1

The box office success of the 2024 professional baseball KBO League is continuing into fall baseball. With the postseason (PS) being sold out consecutively, there is a high possibility that this year’s record for highest postseason admission revenue will be broken.

The 4th game of the semi-playoffs (semi-PO, 3 wins out of 5) between LG Twins and KT Wiz held at Suwon KT Wiz Park in Gyeonggi-do on the 9th was once again held in front of a full crowd (17,600 people). The postseason has been sold out for 11 consecutive games since Game 1 of the Korean Series last year. In this day’s game, KT won 6-5 after a close match in the 11th overtime, and balanced the series record with 2 wins and 2 losses. Game 5 will be held at LG’s home, Jamsil Stadium, on the 11th.

This year’s professional baseball was on an all-time high. Since its launch in 1982, it has surpassed 10 million spectators (10,887,705) for the first time in history, attracting a whopping 2.4 million more spectators than the previous record-high 2017 season (8,406,88). The number of games sold out was 221 out of a total of 720, nearly doubling the previous record of 113 games sold out in 2012 when there were eight teams. By club, Hanwha sold out the most at 47 times, followed by Kia and Samsung (30 times), Doosan (26 times), and LG (25 times).

The revenue from admissions for the 10 teams also exceeded 150 billion won for the first time, reaching 159.314 billion won. Even in the postseason, attendance revenue is expected to increase further as crowds of spectators flock every day. The cumulative audience for this year’s postseason, including the two wild card games, is 130,200, and the estimated revenue from admission to the six games is approximately 5.7 billion won. With the playoffs (PO, 3 wins out of 5 games) and the Korean Series (4 wins out of 7 games) remaining, there is a high possibility that it will exceed 10 billion won. The highest postseason admission revenue of all time is 10.39222 billion won from 15 games in 2012.

As postseason admission revenue increases, dividends to the five teams participating in fall baseball also increase. In accordance with KBO League regulations, the KBO Secretariat gives the five clubs as dividends the amount obtained by deducting approximately 40% of the operating costs from the PS admission revenue. Kia, which qualified first in the regular league and advanced directly to the Korean Series, receives 20% of the dividend first. This is followed by the Korean Series winner (50%), the runner-up team (24%), the team that lost in the playoffs (14%), the team that lost in the semi-playoffs (9%), and the Doosan Bears that lost in the wild card game (3%). Dividends are shared.

Reporter Seo Jae-won jwseo@hankyung.com