KBO expects over 8.6 million spectators this year

8,683,433 is the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO)'s target number of spectators for this season. The number is about 1.3 million higher than the number of spectators last season (7,360,530), which was the highest number in league history. This estimation is a sum of each club's target numbers and shows how confident they are.

Having been the fifth rank last year and barely made it in the fall season, SK set a target of one million spectators, which is close to its record in 2012 (approx. 1.06 million), the year of their debut in the Korean Series. LG also expects to break their 2012 record of about 1.28 million.

NC, which is considered as a front-runner four years after its entry into the major league, set a target of 600,048. "We will make 60 percent of the whole population in Changwon, which is one million (officially 1.08 million), want to come to the stadium," NC remarked. When asked why the specific number unlike other clubs, NC said that they are serious about their goal that much.

The youngest club, KT, aims for 700,000, which is 100,000 more than last year's goal. Hanwha successfully attracted enough spectators that met their goal last year and hopes for the same number this year.

From this season, Samsung moved their home ground from Daegu Municipal Stadium, which can accommodate 10,000, to Lions Park, which can accommodate 24,000. Nexen also moved their home ground from Mokdong Stadium, which has 12,500 seats, to Gocheok Sky Dome, which has 18,000 seats. Both clubs moved to a new stadium with more seats, and their targets increased correspondingly. Samsung's goal is 160 percent of the number of spectators it had last year while Nexen aims to have 117.5 percent of the number of spectators it had last year.

Samsung stated, "We believe that fans who did not think of coming to see our games simply because there were not enough seats will now come to the new stadium."

강홍구기자 windup@donga.com