The 2025 KBO League will open its grand finale on the 22nd with a booming dream of surpassing 10 million spectators for the second consecutive year.
Lotte Giants-LG Twins (Seoul Jamsil Stadium), Doosan Bears-SSG Landers (Incheon SSG Landers Field), Kiwoom Heroes-Samsung Lions (Daegu Samsung Lions Park), Hanwha Eagles-kt wiz (Suwon KT Wiz Park), and NC Dinos-KIA Tigers (Gwangju KIA Champions Field) will greet baseball fans who have waited throughout the winter for two days from the 22nd.메이저놀이터
A total of 720 games, 144 games per team, will be played, and all but two of the opening games and four immediately after the All-Star break will be held as three consecutive games until Aug. 31. The 45 games (9 games per team) that have not been scheduled will be scheduled later along with cancellation games such as rain.
The All-Star Game will be held on July 12 in Daejeon, which opens the era of a new stadium, and the All-Star break will be from July 11 to 16.
While KIA, which won the integrated championship last season, is also considered a strong favorite this year, Samsung, LG, and KT, which played "Autumn Baseball" in the 2024 season, are classified as the top.
If KIA wins again this year, it will be the first team to win the Korean Series (KS) for two consecutive years in nine years since Doosan in 2016.
KIA recruited Patrick Wisdom, a slugger who hit more than 20 home runs for three consecutive years from 2021 in the U.S. Major League Baseball (MLB), and strengthened its power by bringing in Cho Sang-woo, who was the Kiwoom closer.
In addition, Lotte, which is in its second year, Doosan, which is in its second year, and Hanwha, which has opened its new home stadium, are also predicting fierce competition for rankings.
SSG, NC, and Kiwoom do not receive high scores in experts' forecasts before the opening, but since Samsung, which was evaluated as the lowest in the last season, advanced to the Korean Series, it is necessary to open the lid again this year to confirm the outline of the season.
In particular, more interesting pennant races and autumn baseball games are expected due to the struggles of players from 10 teams to select the World Baseball Classic (WBC) national team in March 2026 and variables that end the contract period for five out of 10 team coaches.
The coaches whose contracts end are Samsung's Park Jin-man, LG's Yeom Kyung-yeop, Doosan's Lee Seung-yeop, SSG Lee Soo-yong and Kiwoom's Hong Won-ki.
The introduction of pitch clock is considered the first step in the system that will be changed this year. Peach clock, a system that puts a time limit on the preparation movements of pitchers and batters to reduce game time, was applied as a trial last year, and starting this year, pitchers are required to pitch within 20 seconds when there is no runner and within 25 seconds when there is a runner.
Batters must enter the batter's box within 33 seconds, and if they violate this, the pitcher will have one ball and the batter will have one strike.
In addition, overtime, which was played until the 12th inning, was decided to be played until the 11th inning.
Hanwha will use its new home stadium, Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark, starting this year.
Hanwha, which played its first official game at its new home stadium through an exhibition game against Samsung on the 17th, will also hold the All-Star Game in July here and will challenge the "Autumn Baseball" for the first time in seven years since 2018.
This year's professional baseball is expected to be a big boost to the box office, with a large number of foreign players and "large rookies" from Major League Baseball.
Doosan's left-hander Cole Irvin was 28-40 with a 4.54 ERA in the Major League, while Hanwha's Cody Ponce scored nine scoreless innings in an exhibition game, raising expectations for the regular season.
As rookies, Chung Hyeon-woo (Kium), Jung Woo-ju (Hanwha), and Bae Chan-seung (Samsung) are immediately evaluated as powerful players. Chung Hyeon-woo won two exhibition games, and Jung Woo-ju and Bae Chan-seung threw fastballs over 150 kilometers per hour to challenge themselves on the professional stage.
The performances of transfer students such as Um Sang-baek and Shim Woo-joon in Hanwha uniforms, Jang Hyun-sik (LG), Heo Kyung-min (kt), and Cho Sang-woo (KIA) are also a point of view for baseball fans in the new season.
In the 2025 season of professional baseball, which is full of good news, fans have been filling the stands since the exhibition games.
On the 9th, 71,288 people entered the five stadiums where the exhibition game was held, and the record for the highest number of spectators per day in the exhibition game was recorded. Until last season, 66,785 people were the highest number of spectators per day in the exhibition game in 2015.
The KBO League, which has exceeded 10 million annual spectators for the first time in the Korean sports league, is expected to reach more than 10 million spectators this year, with 178,705 regular-season spectators entering the 2024 season.