[마이데일리 = 이석희 기자]it’s bad Professional baseball is said to be in crisis, but it seems like it has fallen into a quagmire and still shows no sign of a rebound.
The 2022 KBO League kicked off on the 2nd. Until the 7th, not a single match was postponed, and all were played. A total of 25 matches were played.
However, if you watch a TV broadcast, the audience seats are all over the place. No, I don’t have enough fans.
Due to Corona 19, 100% admission from the opening day is not taken without spectators or restrictions on admission like last year, but it is not able to catch the foot of the fans.
The total number of spectators who entered 25 games this year was 152,585. This is only half of what it was in 2019. Last year and 2020 seasons were excluded from comparison because 100% spectators were not admitted.
In 2019, 309,337 people entered over 25 matches. In particular, in 2019, the opening date was March 24. It started about 10 days earlier than this year. In some ways, despite the last-minute cold, four of the five opening games, Jamsil, Sajik, Changwon, and Gwangju, recorded full spectators. In the game the next day, fans filled 25,000 seats at Jamsil Stadium.
However, this year, it was the opening match between Doosan and Hanwha in the same way, but only 16,000 and 11,000 people came in. As a result, the total audience for 25 games is only 49% of what it was in 2019.
In fact, baseball officials thought that 100% of the spectators were allowed from the opening game, so many fans who had stayed at home due to the corona virus over the past two years would come, but it was a big mistake. It is the unanimous opinion of baseball players who have been watching the field since the early days of professional baseball that it is not a miscalculation but a ‘strike’ itself.
Regarding this phenomenon, a baseball player regretted that over the past two years, due to the corona virus, baseball fans had forgotten the habit of watching the game.
Another is that 100% admission is possible, but fans still do not visit the stadium because the fun of watching baseball is halved due to the prohibition of fostering support.
In addition, the fans’ hearts left the baseball field as the ‘hotel drunken girl incident’ of last year’s ignorant players and 4th place at the Tokyo Olympics overlapped.
The problem is that reversal of this atmosphere is not easy. The point is that it takes a considerable amount of time for fans who have stopped walking once to find the baseball field again.
In particular, what KBO officials are concerned about is Hanwha’s move. It is said that if Hanwha, which fell to last place early after losing all six matches after the opening, fails to rebound this month and is fixed at the bottom of the leaderboard, the fan’s footsteps will decrease even more. This means that it will pour cold water on the box office.
According to Hanwha’s move, it is analyzed that ‘spring’ will come to the professional baseball game. Like Hanwha’s slogan, ‘OUR TIME HAS COME’, it is only possible when Hanwha’s time comes.
Now, the weather has improved so much that it is perfect for watching baseball during the daytime games on the weekend. Interest is being drawn to whether professional baseball will be able to regain its popularity before the corona virus.
[사진=마이데일리 DB]
Reporter Lee Seok-hee goodluck@mydaily.co.kr
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