The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) League, which opened the era of 10 million spectators for the first time in its history last year, has heated up since the first week of the 2025 season. After all tickets for the opening game, which were held at five stadiums nationwide on the 22nd, 109,950 spectators visited the stadium on the 23rd, the second day of the opening. While even weekday games are receiving tremendous attention, the number of fans watching the KBO League has also increased significantly.
Teving, who is broadcasting the KBO League, said on the 27th, "The number of viewers (UV) in the two days after the opening has increased by 16% from the same period last year. The total viewing time has increased by 130 percent," he said. Another noticeable result is that the age group who watched the game the most (31%) is in their 20s. Those in their 30s and 40s were counted as 25% and 23%, respectively.
The KBO's popularity was unusual even before the regular season. In this year's KBO League exhibition game, the city hall UV rose more than 15% compared to last year. The total viewing time also increased by more than 120%.
Teaving moved quickly in line with the growing popularity of the KBO League. In addition to broadcasting the game, it produces original entertainment contents such as "Kim Sung-geun's Winter Vacation," "Baseball Representative: League Season 2 of Fans," and communicative live contents "Monday Planning LIVE" to provide various contents to baseball fans. This is not the only one. The broadcasting range has been expanded to the KBO Futures League, a second-tier league where prospects who are particularly working hard on each team are active. Teaving said it will broadcast more than 120 of the entire Futures League games this year.
The "TVing Super Match," which attracted many baseball fans last year, will be expanded to twice a week starting this year. The KBO Special Hall also introduced a search function, allowing users to search for various records by player and date. "We are trying to create an environment where we can enjoy the KBO League by expanding the short-form contents, which have recently become very popular," a TVing official said.
Amid various marketing using the KBO League, KBO Bread, launched by SPC Samlip on the 24th, is so popular that it sold more than 1 million bags in three days. Kbo Bread, which has more sales than "Gukjjini Bread" and "Pokemon Bread," was reportedly planned and started production in January.
[Reporter Lim Jungwoo]
