Korean Baseball Stops Its Growth Finds a Breakthrough
Korean Baseball Stops Its Growth Finds a Breakthrough
Blog Article
The temperature difference between inside and outside the borders of Korean baseball in 2024 was very large. The KBO League was the best season ever, attracting 10.89 million viewers. However, it was the first time in the history of Premier 12 where professional baseball stars participated.메이저놀이터
Korea's international competitiveness peaked at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) runner-up. However, it has been in a slump since it was eliminated in the first round of the WBC in 2013. Pessimism is growing as well.
From an international competitiveness perspective, the most shocking time for Korean baseball fans was the first round of the Korea-Japan Super Game in 1991. The two countries' top-class players faced off for the first time in their history. They lost 3-8. Although the score gap was wide, the gap in pitching, defense, and hitting was clear. They also lost 2-8 in the second round.
At the second event in 1995, however, the team had two wins, two draws and two losses. The first game was 0-0. Following the starting Sanghoon Lee, Kim Yong-soo, Koo Dae-sung, and Sun Dong-yeol took the mound. "Today's pitchers are among the top-class in Japan as well," catcher Atsuya Furuta said after the game. In fact, three players except Kim joined the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in the latter days and played as A-class pitchers. At the third event in 1999, the team had one win and two losses until the third game. In the fourth and final game, the team led 8-7 through the seventh inning, but ended up losing the game unfortunately due to a solo home run by Hideki "Godzilla" Matsui at the top of the eighth inning. "Korean baseball has enough power to surpass Japan going forward," Giants manager Shigeo Nagashima said after the event.
What he said became a reality. In the World Baseball Classic, Olympics, and Olympic qualifiers between 1999 and 2009, Korea led Japan with nine wins and six losses. Statistically, this does not mean "good luck." Japanese baseball has long been a huge barrier to Korean baseball. How did Korean baseball overcome Japanese baseball.
In macroeconomics, growth is attributed to an increase in total factor productivity (TFP), which is explained by the input of factors such as capital and labor and technological advances. The growth of Korean baseball can also be explained by comparing this. The launch of professional baseball in 1982 was the turning point. A level of capital that could not be compared with the days of previous professional baseball was invested by large corporations and the government. Players' skills improve through training and playing games. Players who are wearing professional uniforms experience more training and games. As the period of playing as active players has increased, the time spent on improving their skills has increased significantly in the overall league. Productivity has also been improved through innovation. Players have learned the importance of weight training by interacting with advanced baseball teams in the U.S. and Japan in the 1990s, 10 years after the establishment of professional baseball. Players who had relatively little interest in this field were able to enjoy an advantage in "power" over Japanese baseball.
In many ways, Korean baseball is similar to the Korean economy. The launch of the professional baseball league itself was led by the state and large corporations. The growth process is similar. According to Cho Tae-hyung, vice president of the Economic Research Institute of the Bank of Korea, total inputs contributed 95 percent to economic growth in the 1970s. The figure stood at 70 percent in the 1980s and 1990s, and decreased to 58 percent in the 2000s. The remaining 42 percent was attributed to the improvement of the TFP. It coincided with the heyday of the international baseball league in Korea. However, the TFP halved to 20.5 percent in the 2010s. The figure fell to 7.5 percent between 2020 and 2022. The factors that enabled TFP improvement in the past did not work well and new innovations were needed.
Korean baseball also saw its competitiveness in international competitions plummet during this period. It was the semifinalist in 2006 and the runner-up in 2009, before being eliminated from the first round for the third consecutive time since 2013. Fastball speed is an important factor in baseball's international competitiveness. In 2006, the average speed of four-core speed by Korean pitchers in the WBC was 146.3 kilometers per hour. It was the second fastest among the countries that advanced to the quarterfinals. On the other hand, the team ranked 16th among the 20 countries that participated with 145.7 kilometers per hour at the 2023 World Baseball Classic. The rankings of the two baseball championships are surprisingly similar to those of the final competition. At the 2023 World Baseball Classic, six countries exceeded 150.0 kilometers per hour, while Korea took a backward step.
The reason why Korean baseball was able to surpass Japan in international competitions in the 2000s is also related to improved speed. In 2014, the NPB was 1.4 kilometers per hour faster than the KBO League. There is little difference. Players from the two countries were able to compete in similar speed areas. On the other hand, in 2024, the difference was 4.2 kilometers per hour with 142.6 kilometers per hour in the KBO League and 146.8 kilometers per hour in the NPB.
The capital injection into the KBO League is constantly increasing. This is evidenced by the increase in sales of baseball teams. The sales of all baseball teams in 2012 amounted to 332.3 billion won. In 2023, the company saw a 77 percent increase to 588.1 billion won. During the same period, the average annual salary of players also increased by 64.1 percent. However, it is questionable whether the performance improvement was achieved as much as the amount of input. Training and playing hours for players have reached their limits. If so, we need to find a way out through innovation. In his famous paper on the limitations of economic growth in East Asia, economist Paul Krugman said, "Growth based on expansion of input, not increase of output per unit of input, inevitably declines."
Korean baseball has already experienced "growth through innovation" in the past. Now it is lagging behind in innovation in the world baseball. The reason for this can be attributed to the change in the aspect of innovation. Since the launch of the pro baseball league, Korean baseball has been able to receive know-how through face-to-face contact with advanced baseball through overseas training. On the other hand, global baseball innovation is led by sports science. Objective information and knowledge are as important as that of experts. Many high-ranking officials of the team agree that the league as a whole has low acceptance of this measurement. Even if an expensive measuring device is installed, it becomes an expensive toy if a coach or coach does not take advantage of it.