MLB: Embracing How KBO Became Popular Could Fix Baseball

MLB has misjudged the current situation. Why they should look into how KBO became the most popular sport in Korea utilizing a cheering culture.

Recently, MLB announced that they are going to implement some changes to the Atlantic League this coming season. It seems clear that their primary way to figure out the current issue they confront is to make game shorter and force teams to take more offensive approach.

However, they are misjudging the reason why people think that MLB is so boring. In America’s #1 sport, NFL games averaged 3 hours and 12 minutes last season while MLB averaged 3 hours and 4 minutes.

If game time is somewhat reduced to approximately two hours, it could attract more people. Nevertheless, this is not the ultimate way to solve everything.

MLB does not see through the issue at all. What is the main issue then?

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Everything started from the fact that MLB is not fun to watch. The NBA, which was once behind MLB in popularity, is now more popular than MLB. Some people might want to say that it is because the game pace in the NBA has increased a lot and MLB should adopt the concept, too.

However, those people miss the point that MLB and the NBA are not the same sport.

It is exciting to watch two NBA teams draining three-point shots. In contrast, it is very painful to watch two teams homering consecutively because it means that pitchers are obliterated and continue to be replaced.

To fix this problem, MLB should look to Korea where the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) apparently confronted the same problem that MLB is currently dealing with. KBO was popular when the league started in the 1980s. However, it soon faced a downfall after the 2002 World Cup in Korea.

Korean people were heavily into soccer due to the Korean national soccer team’s success at the World Cup, which negatively affected baseball popularity. There was even an urban legend that people cooked Korean barbeque at a baseball stadium since it was completely empty.

Right now, baseball is the most popular sport in Korea again and everybody looks to baseball for fun. It is even deemed as one of the ideal places for a date if you could imagine.

How did they turn it around?

Basically, they tried to involve the audience in the game. There are cheerleaders in KBO games. Cheerleaders are eye-candy that people, especially males, would be so interested in coming out to watch games for.

Cheerleading captains, as you can see in the video posted, leads the audience to cheer for the team. For instance, they make the walk-up song for each player with customized lyrics.

For example, Eric Thames’ walk-up song was “Midnight Memories” by One Direction but with different lyrics for Thames. It is more entertaining for the audience to sing along to cheer for your favorite player.

Especially since there are fight songs associated with almost every player on the team, making people feel more connected as they and players sing along altogether.  You can feel the atmosphere in the video of Eric Thames’ fight song below.

Moreover, people use thundersticks for postseason games instead of the towel that MLB fans commonly use. It makes the atmosphere more intense to get you focused on the game due to the noise that they make.

If you like cheering, there is a cheering zone, which is usually located behind first base. There, you can enjoy the game with a cheerleading captain.

Each team has their own cheering culture. For instance, Lotte Giants, which is located in Gyeong-Sang Do where people are widely known for their dialect in Korea, give away plastic bags to fans so that they can clean up the mess after the game. However, it is now used as a cheering tool.

The most interesting thing is that each team has a special chant when the opposing pitcher tries to pick off. One of the most popular chants is “Mah!”, which means “Hey” in the south region dialect, to threaten the pitcher to throw forward instead.

In the same situation, Hanwha Eagles fans say, “What are you doing?”.

On the contrary, MLB cheering culture is almost non-existent. People sit down and relax to watch the game with a beer. It is not different from watching the game home at all. They literally just watch the game.

It is more infrequent in MLB that players show incredible athleticism compared to NFL or NBA. This is why non-MLB fans feel that it is undoubtedly boring to watch. The ultimate problem is that it is not appealing to non-MLB fans.

People would not come out even if the MLB game lasted only two hours due to its tedious atmosphere. MLB should focus on how to make the game more exciting and how to give fans a more special experience at the stadium so that they want to come again.

More home runs and shorter game times would not solve anything.