The 2023 Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), which will hold a total of 720 games with 16 round-robin games between teams and 144 games per team, has surpassed the “5 million spectators” mark with a cumulative attendance of 5,042,283 after 457 games.
On April 4, the KBO announced that 42,361 fans attended five stadiums in Jamsil (KT Wiz-Dusan Bears), Busan (SSG Landers-Lotte Giants), Daegu (LG Twins-Samsung Lions), Changwon (Kiwoom Heroes-NC Dinos), and Gwangju (Hanwha Eagles-KIA Tigers), surpassing the “5 million spectators” mark with a cumulative total of 5,042,283 fans after 457 games.
This is a faster trend than in the pre-COVID-19 era, so attention will be focused on the final attendance numbers.
The highest seasonal attendance in baseball history was 8.4 million in 2017, with an average attendance of 11,668. The 2016 season was second on the all-time list with 8.33 million (11,583 average).
Despite torrential rains and heat waves, it took just 93 games to bring 1 million fans to the ballpark since reaching the 4 million mark on May 2.
The number of games to reach the four- to five-million mark is the second-fastest since 2015, when the 10-team system began.
The overall average attendance was also up 34% from the same number of games a year ago to 11,133.
The club with the highest average attendance per game is league leader LG.
LG has the highest total attendance and average attendance per game at 16,228 with a total of 795,141 fans in 49 games at home.
This is followed by SSG (14,755), Lotte (13,153), Doosan (12,866), Samsung (11,36), and KIA (12,230).
Six of the 10 clubs averaged more than 10,000 fans.
Kiwoom had the highest year-over-year increase, jumping from an average of 4,548 last season to 8,000 this season, a 76% increase.
NC Dinos (67%), Hanwha (48%), and Lotte (46%) are other clubs with significant home attendance increases.
It’s also worth noting that attendance is higher than it was before the pandemic hit.
Average attendance is up 3.4% from the same number of games in 2019, and the number of games it took to reach 5 million fans from the start has been reduced from 463 games in 2019 to 457 games this season.온라인바카
While the World Baseball Classic (WBC), which preceded the start of the regular season, performed below expectations, it could be argued that more baseball fans were drawn to the ballpark by the lifting of quarantine measures than were disappointed by the lack of international competition.