Seoul: The South Korean baseball league has announced that it has surpassed the 2 million mark in regular-season attendance in the fewest games in its history. The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) revealed that three games played on Tuesday attracted a combined 25,247 fans, bringing the season total to 2,005,371 after just 118 games. This surpasses the previous record of 126 games set in 2012.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the KBO had also reached the 1 million attendance mark earlier this season in a record time of 60 games, five fewer than the previous record set in 2012. Despite two of the five scheduled games being rained out on Tuesday, attendance figures remained strong across the league. At Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, the LG Twins hosted the NC Dinos before 12,941 fans, marking only the second time in 14 home games that the Twins did not fill their 23,750-seat stadium.
Elsewhere in the capital, the Kiwoom Heroes faced off against the Doosan Bears at Gocheok Sky Dome, drawing 6,809 fans. In Suwon, just south of Seoul, 5,497 fans attended the game between the KT Wiz and the SSG Landers at KT Wiz Park. The Twins are currently leading the league in average attendance, with 22,920 fans per game, and have attracted a total of 320,879 fans so far this season.
The Samsung Lions follow closely, averaging 22,790 fans at their 24,000-seat Daegu Samsung Lions Park, with a total attendance of 319,055 fans. The Bears, sharing Jamsil with the Twins, rank third in average attendance with 20,165 fans. Across the league, teams are averaging 16,995 fans per game, marking a 19 percent increase from the same period last season.
The KBO has already seen 50 sellouts this season, accounting for approximately 42 percent of the games played. Last year, the league set new records by drawing 10.88 million fans and achieving 221 sellouts, surpassing the previous attendance record of 8.4 million fans.