Professional baseball has set a record of 5 million spectators in the fewest games ever.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) reported on the 3rd that the 2025 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League achieved 5 million spectators in just 294 games, the fewest in history.
Last year, the KBO League recorded a cumulative audience of 10,887,705, becoming the first in Korean professional sports history to surpass 10 million spectators. This year, it is also on track for a second 10 million spectators and a record for the most spectators ever. On June 3rd, a total of 100,356 spectators entered five stadiums, bringing the cumulative audience to 5,099,720, surpassing 5 million spectators. Thus, it achieved 5 million spectators just after completing about 41% of the 2025 KBO League schedule.
As of the 3rd, the average attendance was 17,346, which is an increase of about 19% compared to the average attendance of 14,549 recorded during the same number of games in the 2024 season. By team, Samsung leads with an average attendance of 22,312. Following are LG with 22,260 and Lotte with 20,301, as three clubs recorded an average attendance of over 20,000. Doosan (19,839), SSG (17,706), KIA (17,022), and Hanwha (16,906) also had seven clubs recording average attendances of over 16,000, while all ten clubs had average attendances exceeding 11,000.
In total attendance by team, Samsung surpassed 700,000 spectators first, with 736,310 attending during their 33 home games. Following Samsung, LG recorded 690,070 and Lotte exceeded 600,9029. Additionally, Doosan recorded 595,170 and SSG recorded 566,589, with five teams surpassing 550,000 spectators before completing half of their entire home schedule.
Sellouts are also continuing at the stadiums. Of the 294 games played as of the 3rd, nearly half, about 49%, or 143 games, were sold out. Hanwha recorded the most sellouts, achieving sellouts in 26 of their 29 home games, while Samsung recorded sellouts in 26 of their 33 home games. Following them, LG had 21 sellouts in 31 games, and Lotte had 21 sellouts in 30 games, with four clubs exceeding 20 sellouts. Meanwhile, Hanwha has set a new record for consecutive home sellouts in the KBO League, achieving sellouts in all 22 home games up to June 3rd.
[OSEN]