KIA’s Record-Breaking Season: 10 Million Fans and a Postseason Payday for the Ages

[서울=뉴스핌] Sports reporter Jang Hwan-soo = KIA, which won its 12th Korean Series championship, the most ever, earned extra income of 5.25 billion won.

According to the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) on the 29th, this year’s postseason consisted of 16 games (2 wild card games, 5 semi-playoff games, 4 playoff games, and 5 Korean series games), attracting 353,550 spectators. Ticket revenue totaled 14.6 billion won, the highest ever.

[서울=뉴스핌] Sports reporter Jang Hwan-soo = The KIA team posed as a group after defeating Samsung in Game 5 of the Korean Series held in Gwangju on the 28th and confirming the overall championship. [사진=KIA] 2024.10.29 zangpabo@newspim.com

The KBO distributes the amount of admission revenue minus about 40% of general expenses to the five teams that played the postseason. First, the team that ranks first in the regular season gets 20% of the dividends first. The remainder is divided into 50% of the winning team, 24% of the runner-up team, 14% of the team that lost in the playoffs, 9% of the team that lost in the semi-playoffs, and 3% of the team that lost in the wild card game.

The overall cost is estimated to be 40%, and excluding this, the amount of 8.75 billion won will be divided among the five teams.

KIA will receive 1.75 billion won for taking first place in the regular season, and 3.5 billion won, half of the remaining 7 billion won, for winning the Korean Series.

LG, the overall winner last year, received 2.943 billion won. As ticket revenue increased, KIA received 1.8 times more money.

Accordingly, the KIA team spent a ‘warm fall’ with the joy of winning.

The winning team’s parent company can give up to 50% of the total dividends received by the baseball team as a winning bonus, so KIA can add an additional 2.625 billion won. Adding this together, the total bonus increases to 7.88 billion won.

Meanwhile, the runner-up team Samsung received 1.68 billion won in dividends, LG received 980 million won, KT received 630 million won, and Doosan received 210 million won in dividends.

zangpabo@newspim.com