Pro Baseball Postseason Also a Huge Hit... KIA on the Money Seat with the Championship

All-Season 16 Games Sold Out
KIA's Payout 1.8 Times Higher Than Last Year's LG

This year's professional baseball postseason, featuring representative teams from Yeongnam and Yeongnam regions such as the KIA Tigers and Samsung Lions, as well as the LG Twins who attracted the highest number of spectators in a single season, achieved record-breaking popularity, and the teams that advanced to the postseason are expected to receive substantial dividends. KIA, which won both the regular season and postseason championships, is projected to receive a huge amount exceeding 5.2 billion KRW in dividends alone. This is about 1.8 times more than the approximately 2.943 billion KRW in dividends received by LG, the integrated champion last year.

According to the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) Secretariat, a total of 16 games were held in this year's postseason, with a total attendance of 353,550 spectators. The number of postseason games is the highest since the two-league system reverted to a single league in 2001. Since 2001, the fewest postseason games were 11 in 2021, while the most, 16 games, were held in 2009, 2013, 2018, 2022, and this year.

The attendance was the fourth highest in history, following 2009 (410,262), 1997 (379,978), and 2012 (363,251). All 16 games in this year's postseason were sold out. The revenue from postseason attendance this year was approximately 14.6 billion KRW, significantly surpassing the previous record of 10.392 billion KRW set in 2012. This year's postseason attendance revenue exceeded 10 billion KRW for the fourth time in history, following 2012, 2018, and 2022.

Following the regular season, the postseason also saw a blockbuster success. This year's professional baseball attracted a record-breaking 10,887,705 spectators during the regular season, marking the first time in history that the 10 million spectator era was reached. Traditional popular teams such as KIA, Samsung, LG, and Doosan performed well, greatly surpassing the previous record of 840,000 spectators set in 2017. As a result, the teams advancing to the postseason are also set to benefit financially. According to Article 47 of the KBO League regulations on revenue distribution, the KBO Secretariat distributes the remaining amount of postseason ticket revenue, after deducting all expenses related to event operations, as dividends to the five teams that participated in the postseason. The first-place team in the regular season receives 20% of the dividends, and the remaining amount is divided as follows: 50% to the Korean Series champion, 24% to the runner-up, 14% to the team eliminated in the playoffs, 9% to the team eliminated in the semi-playoffs, and 3% to the team eliminated in the wildcard game.

KIA Tigers' Kim Tae-gun is celebrating after hitting a go-ahead RBI single in the bottom of the 6th inning with one out and runners on first and third during Game 5 of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO Postseason Korean Series against the Samsung Lions at Gwangju Kia Champions Field on the 28th.
Photo by Yonhap News

Of the 14.6 billion KRW in postseason attendance revenue this year, about 40% is estimated to be expenses, leaving 8.75 billion KRW to be shared among the five teams. KIA, having finished first in the regular season, first receives 20%, or 1.75 billion KRW. Then, by winning the Korean Series, they receive half of the remaining 7 billion KRW, which is 3.5 billion KRW. In total, KIA receives 5.25 billion KRW in dividends alone. KIA is also expected to receive additional bonuses from its parent company. According to KBO bonus regulations, the parent company of the champion team can give up to 50% of the total dividends received by the baseball team as a championship bonus. This means the KIA players could receive up to approximately 2.6 billion KRW more as bonuses.

The Korean Series runner-up Samsung is expected to receive about 1.68 billion KRW, the playoff-losing LG about 980 million KRW, the semi-playoff-losing kt wiz about 630 million KRW, and the wildcard game-losing Doosan Bears about 210 million KRW in dividends.