Daegu heated baseball… Samsung’s home audience exceeds 1 million

The Samsung Lions of the Korea Professional Baseball (KBO) League exceeded 1 million spectators per year for the first time in 42 years since the club was founded in 1982.

According to the Samsung Lions on the 15th, 20,435 people visited Daegu Lions Park (Lapak) on the 14th, recording a cumulative home attendance of 1,014,689. This season, the Samsung Lions are the second team to exceed 1 million spectators, following the Doosan Bears (8th), which uses Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul as their home. An average of 17,494 people visited the Samsung Lions’ 2024 season home games per game, which was 46% more than last year’s average attendance of 11,912.

In Daegu, there is a saying these days, “Getting tickets to a home game is like picking a star in the sky.” Weekends and holidays are often sold out, and good seats are sold out early even on weekdays. Of the 58 games held at Lapak this year, a total of 17 were sold out (24,000 spectators). Lapak, which opened in 2016, far surpassed the record number of spectators that year, which was 851,417. A Samsung official said, “Considering that Jamsil Stadium is a Seoul stadium with many visitors to the away team, Samsung’s home stadium’s record of 1 million spectators proves the high enthusiasm of Daegu fans for professional baseball.”

The popularity of professional baseball this year is due to the fierce battle for leadership. The Samsung Lions are also performing better than expected at the beginning of the season.

There is also an analysis that ‘Young Gun’s’ great performance after the application of the Automatic Ball Decision System (ABS), an artificial intelligence (AI) decision introduced for the first time this year, is leading the second heyday of professional baseball. Before the introduction of ABS, referees tended to make decisions in favor of famous players, but AI does not know famous players. The analysis is that thanks to this, new players made great strides and their fan base increased, leading to the era of cloud crowds in professional baseball.

In addition to Kim Do-young (20), who leads the Kia Tigers at the forefront, Doosan Bears’ sure-to-win pitcher Kim Taek-yeon (19), and Samsung Lions’ Kim Young-woong (20), who surpassed 20 home runs as a rookie this year, Young-gun’s outstanding performance this year stands out. Among the starting lineup of the Samsung Lions, which is in third place, a half-game gap from second place as of the 15th, Kim Ji-chan (23), Lee Jae-hyun (21), Won Tae-in (24), Yoon Jeong-bin (25), and left-handed pitcher Lee Seung-hyun (22) are all 20. put. Jang Mi-hwa, who often visits Rapak with her family, said, “The number of female fans in their 20s has increased significantly this year. All the new and old players are good, but Samsung Young-gun’s performance in particular seems to be related to the record of 1 million spectators.”

Experts are offering an interesting analysis that says the ‘Matthew Effect’ in baseball has disappeared due to ABS. The Matthew Effect is a concept advocated by American sociologist Robert Merton in 1969. This refers to a phenomenon in which, even if an unknown scientist produces research results similar to those of a famous scientist, the famous scientist receives more research funding. The meaning is taken from the verse in the Bible’s Gospel of Matthew: ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and from him who does not, even what he has will be taken away.’

Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo threw the first pitch at the home game against KT Wiz on the 15th, Liberation Day, to celebrate Rapac exceeding 1 million spectators.

Daegu = Reporter Oh Kyung-mook okmook@hankyung.com