Starting in May, KBO League Internet and smartphone paid viewings will be required.

 tarting in May, you will have to pay to watch KBO League games on the Internet, smartphones, or tablet PCs. 

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) officially announced on the 4th that it had signed a three-year contract worth a total of 135 billion won with CJ ENM, which was selected as the preferred negotiator for wired and wireless broadcasting rights. With this contract, CJ ENM has the exclusive right to resell domestic wired and wireless broadcasting rights and broadcasting rights for all 2024-2026 KBO League games.

Starting this year, watching wired and wireless broadcasts of KBO League games can only be done through TVING, CJ ENM's video streaming (OTT) service.

CJ ENM is holding a special event where users who have signed up for the TVing service can watch the KBO League for free from the regular season opening game on the 23rd to April 30th, including the exhibition game opening on the 9th. Starting in May, when the free event ends, you must purchase a TV ticket to watch all regular league and postseason games.

According to TVING's advertising standard plan, you can enjoy all KBO League games in 1080 pixel or higher resolution for the lowest price of 5,500 won per month. In the case of the KBO League live broadcast service, there is a policy not to run 'pre-roll advertisements' that appear briefly before playback. You can watch TV broadcasts such as terrestrial broadcasting and sports channels as before, but online viewing on smartphones or PCs is only available to TVING subscribers. 

s expected, the era of ‘paid online broadcasting’ for Korean professional baseball has come to an end. Five years ago, when the telecommunications and portal consortium won the business license (2019-2023), the amount proposed was an annual average of 22 billion won. CJ ENM was selected as the preferred bidder by bidding with an annual average size of 45 billion won, which is more than twice that amount, and it was predicted that 'pay-per-view' will be held. This is the largest wired and wireless broadcasting rights contract in domestic professional sports history.

There seems to be no going against the trend of online paid sports content. Previously, 'paying' was introduced for overseas soccer, basketball, and tennis, but there is resistance to paying for baseball due to the widespread perception that it is 'free to watch'. An official from one club said, "Looking at the situation overseas, pay-per-view broadcasting of major sports is inevitable, but in the case of the KBO League, I think the time has come sooner than expected. How will the baseball fans at the club react to this? (during the contract period for wired and wireless broadcasting rights) “We are looking at the next three years as important,” he said.

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