Korean Baseball Sees Increase In Ticket Sales, Primed To Break Record

With 48,529 tickets sold for the Korea Baseball Organization's Sunday games, the number of visitors to baseball stadiums this year hit 6 million "and keeps shooting up with great force to crash last year’s record" of 6,810,028, according to Jung Min-ho of the KOREA TIMES. As of Monday, the KBO has welcomed 6,046,019 fans to the arenas since the season started in April. This is the second consecutive season the attendance figure has reached 6 million since the inception of professional baseball in Korea, however, in the past five years the number had only stood around 5 million. An average of 14,430 fans visited stadiums for every game, which is 9% higher than last year. The momentum has caused the KBO to predict that "the number will easily surpass the 7-million-mark." Seoul-based club Nexen Heroes has contributed to the popularity by drawing 524,565 fans to its home stadium in 55 games, showing a 38% increase in spectators from last year. Meanwhile, "traditionally favored teams" the Lotte Giants and the Doosan Bears welcomed 1,165,602 and 1,100,384 to their home stadiums, in Busan and Seoul respectively (KOREA TIMES, 8/27).