KBO League reaches 8 million fans for the 4th time in history

The ‘2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League’ has surpassed the long-awaited 8 million spectators. A total of 51,451 fans attended the three games held on the 15th, including the Jamsil Doosan Bears-LG Twins, Changwon Samsung Lions-NC Dinos, and Daejeon Lotte Giants-Hanwha Eagles, bringing the total season attendance to 803,6043.

This is the fourth time the KBO has reached 8 million fans in a single season. The first 8 million fans were 8,395,777 in the 2016 season. The 2017 season surpassed the 8 million mark for the second consecutive year with 8.468 million fans. The 2017 season’s attendance record remains the highest single-season attendance record in history.

The KBO also surpassed the 8 million mark in the 2018 season (8,073,742), making it the most popular league for the third consecutive year. However, the 2019 season (7.28 million) saw a dip in popularity, and the league was unable to mobilize normal attendance for three years as it entered the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the final year of the pandemic, the 2022 season (6.076 million) rebounded to surpass 6 million spectators, and the 2023 season marked a resurgence in popularity, surpassing 8 million spectators again.

At the start of the season, there were concerns about the impact of an early exit from the fifth World Baseball Classic (WBC), but as the standings tightened, more and more fans flocked to the ballparks, especially in the second half of the season when fall baseball began to take shape.

Some interesting records were also set. This season, the KBO reached 7 million fans on September 24. It added another million fans in 74 games. The pace from 7 million to 8 million is the fastest ever. The previous record was 78 games in the 2017 season.

By team, the top honors go to LG, which won its first regular season title in 29 years. LG topped the list of 10 teams with 1.2637 million home attendance through 15 days. It’s been 10 years since the 2013 season (1,289,297) since LG surpassed the 1 million mark.메이저사이트

Second in attendance behind LG is last year’s champions, SSG Landers. SSG had a home attendance of 1,047,204 this season so far. In third place is Doosan (953,712).

There are only two days left until the final day of the regular season. With the race for third place still tightly contested, fans will continue to flock to the ballparks until the 17th. It will be interesting to see if the 2023 KBO season can surpass the 2018 season as the third-best in terms of attendance.