On August 23, the Korean professional baseball league reached a new milestone, celebrating its second consecutive season of surpassing 10 million cumulative spectators. After just 587 games, total attendance reached 10,088,590, highlighting the KBO League's soaring popularity.

Across five stadiums nationwide, a total of 101,317 fans attended games on this landmark day. Stadiums in Daegu, Changwon, Gwangju, and Daejeon all reported sell-out crowds, while Seoul’s Jamsil Stadium welcomed 21,834 enthusiastic baseball fans.

This season, the league has maintained an average attendance of 17,187 per game, with 278 out of 587 games sold out. This not only sets a new single-season record for sell-outs but also demonstrates an accelerated pace in shattering attendance records compared to previous years.

Fueling this surge is fierce competition among teams, with milestones continuously falling: records for welcoming the 1 millionth, 2 millionth, and up to the 9 millionth fan were all achieved in succession this year. Last year, the KBO crossed the 10 million spectator mark in 671 games.

The KBO designated August 23 as "Baseball Day" in 2009 to commemorate South Korea’s gold medal victory in baseball at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Since then, celebrations and events have marked the occasion. This year, leading figures such as KBO Commissioner Heo Koo-yeon, national team manager Ryu Ji-hyun, and Strengthening Committee member Cho Kye-hyun attended events, joining fans to mark the day’s significance.

On the same day, Hanwha ended their six-game losing streak with a 5-0 home victory against SSG, and also celebrated surpassing one million home fans in a single season for the first time in club history.

Meanwhile, Samsung is on the verge of breaking its own single-season attendance record, having drawn 1,330,816 home spectators so far this year. With the ongoing surge in popularity, there is even speculation that the KBO League could welcome over 12 million fans by the season’s end.

Having entered the 6 million fan era in 2011, 7 million in 2012, and 8 million in 2016, the KBO League once again demonstrated massive public appeal and dynamic growth on this year’s Baseball Day.

Note “This article was translated from the original Korean version using AI assistance, and subsequently edited by a native-speaking journalist.”

Photo=Yonhap News Agency