Starting this year, all baseball fans can use KBO League shorts on any social media platform. The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) has concluded negotiations for wired and wireless broadcasting rights. Along with this, the era of paid KBO league broadcasting has also opened. 먹튀검증
KBO announced on the 4th that it will sign a contract with CJ ENM for wired and wireless broadcasting rights in the 2024-2026 KBO League and conduct wired and wireless broadcasting through TVING, Korea’s leading OTT service, for three years from 2024.
Through this contract, CJ ENM will have the exclusive right to resell broadcasting rights as well as domestic wired and wireless broadcasting rights for all 2024-2026 KBO league games.
KBO conducted a competitive bid to select preferred negotiators from December 4 last year to January 3 this year in order to select fair and objective operators.
The criteria for selecting preferred negotiators consisted of technical evaluation (50%) consisting of various evaluation items indicators such as business performance capability, business strategy and operation plan, system and infrastructure construction, content activation plan, coverage securing plan, and related business performance, and price evaluation (50%) score that evaluated bid offer price.
After the deadline for receiving bids, CJ ENM, which earned the highest score in the comprehensive evaluation, was selected as the preferred bidder at an evaluation meeting on January 5 in which KBO’s marketing subsidiary, KBOP board members (head of marketing for each team), and KBO and CJ ENM reached a final agreement on February 16 after about 40 days of preferential negotiations from January 8.
Through this contract, any baseball fan can freely use the game shorts video, which is less than 40 seconds long, on all social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. KBO league game videos have been restricted by baseball fans from using social media platforms for the past five years. However, starting this season, baseball fans will be allowed to actively produce various “memories” and “GIFs.” Through this, KBO and each club expect to increase accessibility of new baseball fans and expand core fans through the use of various videos.
In addition, KBO and 10 clubs will also produce a wider range of content, including KBO league games, through official social media channels to provide baseball fans with entertainment that has not been seen before.
KBO said, “We held priority negotiations with CJ ENM on broadcasting rights contracts and discussed ways to cooperate in various services to improve the KBO league viewing experience and broadcast quality, and to help baseball fans enjoy the KBO league more diversely.”
CJ ENM will officially provide additional features such as highlights of all games, replay of the entire game provided by existing wired and wireless broadcasting companies, running 10 clubs’ full-time channels, a time machine function to replay missed scenes, and a chatting function, from March 23, the opening day of the regular season.
In particular, during the regular season, a game will be selected once a week to introduce “TVING SUPER MATCH,” which will produce differentiated baseball broadcasts that have not been seen before, including special preview shows, in-depth interviews with coaches and players, and review shows after the game.
CJ ENM will hold a special event to watch the KBO League for free from March 9 to April 30, when the exhibition games open, and during that period, all users who sign up for the TVing service can watch the KBO League live broadcast for free. In addition, CJ ENM will directly produce exhibition games that are not broadcasted on TV and broadcast them through TVing so that baseball fans can watch all the exhibition games of the cheering team.
If you purchase a TVing ticket after the free event period, you can watch the entire KBO League regular season and postseason games. In particular, through the “Advertising Standard” plan, which will be released on the 4th, you can enjoy all KBO League games with a quality of more than 1,080P, as well as more than 160,000 contents, including various entertainment, dramas, and movies. In particular, the KBO League live broadcasting service will not operate pre-roll advertisements, and will increase the viewing experience by allowing baseball fans to watch the games faster. Except for the live broadcasting service, all services such as replaying the entire game, highlighting the entire game, VOD, and text graphic broadcasting will be provided free of charge through TVing.
In addition, even on the smart TV platform, where it was previously difficult to access KBO league content, installing the TVing smart TV app will provide a service to enjoy the KBO league comfortably through a large screen.
This contract for wired and wireless broadcasting rights is 135 billion won (annual average of 45 billion won) for three years, the largest amount of wired and wireless broadcasting rights in Korea’s professional sports history, and it is a super-large contract that more than doubled the annual average from the existing wired and wireless broadcasting rights contract of 110 billion won (annual average of 22 billion won) over five years.
KBO has taken a big step forward in industrialization of the KBO league by signing a total of 162 billion won (54 billion won per year) in TV broadcasting rights contracts with three terrestrial broadcasting companies for three years and signing the largest wired and wireless broadcasting rights contract ever.