Sold Out 23,750 Tickets for June 18 Jamsil KIA-LG Game
8,407,887 Fans Over 569 Games
Attendance Up Despite Heat and Olympics Compared to Last Year
The 2024 KBO League in Korean professional baseball has overcome the scorching heat to set a new record for the highest attendance in a single season.
On the 18th, all 23,750 tickets for the game between the KIA Tigers and LG Twins held at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul were sold out, bringing the cumulative attendance for the 2024 KBO League to 8,407,887.
Before the attendance counts from the other four stadiums were even completed, this season's KBO League surpassed the all-time highest attendance record of 8,400,688 (720 games) set in 2017.
Up to the 17th, in 568 games played, the 2024 KBO League had attracted 8,384,137 spectators, signaling a new record. This year, the previous highest record was surpassed after just 569 games. Once the attendance counts for the other four games are finalized, the official record-breaking point will be confirmed at '573 games.'
This year's KBO League started strong with a total of 103,841 attendees over the first five opening games, all sold out across all stadiums. On June 23, including a doubleheader, 142,660 spectators attended eight games, setting the KBO League's all-time highest daily attendance record.
Weekday game attendance also saw a significant increase. While the 2023 season averaged 8,785 spectators over 437 weekday games, the 2024 season has averaged 13,211 spectators over 370 weekday games as of the 18th, showing about a 50% increase, according to the KBO.
Weekends saw ticket sales battles. This season, Saturday games averaged 18,594 spectators. Especially last month, amid the scorching heat and the start of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, 97 games averaged 14,832 spectators, an increase of 3,521 compared to the 83 games in July last year, which averaged 11,311 spectators.
In this month as well, as of the 17th, 66 games averaged 15,852 attendees, an increase of 5,566 compared to the same period last year, which had 113 games averaging 10,286 spectators.
Sold-out games also reached 160 by the 17th, surpassing the previous record of 68 games set in 2015 after the league expanded to 10 teams, continuing the record-breaking streak since May 19.
The Hanwha Eagles set new records with 17 consecutive sold-out home games and the most sold-out games in a season, selling out 41 of their 60 home games (previous record was 36 games by the Samsung Lions in 1995), achieving a sellout rate of 68%.
Samsung surpassed one million cumulative spectators for the first time since its founding. It is highly likely that the number of teams recording over one million cumulative spectators will also reach an all-time high.
Since the league expanded to 10 teams, the most teams to attract over one million spectators in a single season was four in 2017 (LG Twins, Doosan Bears, KIA Tigers, Lotte Giants).
This year, LG, Doosan, and Samsung have already surpassed one million spectators, and KIA, SSG Landers, and Lotte are also approaching the one million mark.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
