As Seoul prepares to host one of the most hotly anticipated MLB season openers ever next month, its mayor is seeking to make MLB games regular events in South Korea.
Fans hoping to see new Dodgers players Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto go up against Yu Darvish and Kim Ha-seong of San Diego Padres poured online on the first day of ticket sales to try and secure seats. The quota available for MLB’s first regular-season game in South Korea on March 20 sold out in the first hour.
"There are a lot of baseball fans in Seoul, and it’s a very attractive city, so the MLB proposed that it would like to hold the opening games here, and of course we agreed,” Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, 63, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. In addition, "MLB expressed its intention to visit regularly in the future if this event goes well.”
The Seoul Series will be a chance for South Korea and MLB to work together to revive professional baseball’s popularity. The games are also part of an effort by Seoul to attract more visitors as the end of the pandemic helps travel take off globally.
Seoul will be the site of Ohtani’s debut with the Dodgers after the Japanese star signed a $700 million contract with the team during the offseason. That may rekindle interest in a sport that’s seen a decrease in Korean fans — especially among younger people. Their preference is often to go online and play esports games, particularly after COVID-19 forced them to look for entertainment options at home, according to Jeon Yong-bae, a sports management professor at Dankook University south of Seoul.
Tickets to the Seoul Series are hard to come by, though, because its venue, Gocheok Sky Dome, has fewer than 17,000 seats. That’s about a third of Dodger Stadium and smaller than Tokyo Dome, which seats over 40,000 for baseball.
Seoul is trying to make more space for sports viewing. A facility used in the 1988 Summer Olympics is being renovated as Jamsil Sports MICE Complex and offers about 46,000 seats. There are also plans to build a new domed stadium that can accommodate about 30,000 people, Oh said.
He visited Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays, which has a retractable roof and a hotel attached. Seoul is using that venue as a "benchmark” and "perhaps in five to six years, we will be able to enjoy games in such a state-of-the-art dome stadium,” Oh said.
Oh’s target is for 15 million overseas tourists to visit Seoul this year, more than the 12 million who visit in an average year, and his longer-term goal is to double the figure to 30 million visitors.
Finding accommodation for an increased number of visitors may be a problem due to a shortage of hotels in Korea’s capital. Loosening regulations to allow services like Airbnb to operate would be helpful, Oh said. Japan, a rival of Korea in attracting tourists, has relaxed similar regulations as well as rules for visas, but some authorities in Korea are "quite conservative,” he said.
Oh, a lawyer by training, became well known after starring in a 1994 television series with another attorney, offering legal and life advice. Oh is overseeing a city that is one of the biggest in East Asia — with 9.4 million people — after a decade away from the job following his first stint as mayor. He has about two years left in his term.
Success in boosting overseas visitors to Seoul, including sports fans, may help Oh in his political career after he leaves the mayor’s office. He doesn’t rule out following the example of former mayor Lee Myung-bak who was elected president.
"My top priority is how to make Seoul a world-class city during the remaining two years of my term,” Oh said. "The next political step will be considered near the end of the term.”
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.