ESPN To Television KBO Baseball: How To Prepare

It’s hard to overstate just how perfect the moment is for the Korean Baseball Organization to secure a television deal with ESPN, as announced Monday.

The KBO has been around since 1982, and produced plenty of talent that reached Major League Baseball, including 2019 MLB all star Hyun-jin Ryu, while many major leaguers here have made their way to the KBO.

The quality of the league is high, and the game itself offers more balls in play than MLB traditionally does, making for better TV.

But there’s this, obviously: there is no MLB on TV. There are no live sports. Americans are talking themselves into this Michael Jordan documentary from 22 years ago as something groundbreaking simply because it’s new, it hasn’t been seen before. As a frequent consumer of sports documentaries… I am not convinced this is the case.

But now? Live, daily baseball? Baseball people can watch, develop favorite teams and players, and crucially, bet on? Well, that’s a different story. It is a wise business move by ESPN, still plagued by the twin problems of what to air every day and looking for anything to cover.

And remember, ESPN is the channel that found a way to turn NBA Summer League — largely an evaluation of young players, many of whom will never see the court, in tiny gyms — into a day-and-night series of events. So KBO is in the right place for maximilist coverage.

Broadcasts will be remote, but ESPN is able to put top-tier talent on the case, from Jon Sciambi and Jessica Mendoza to Karl Revech and Eduardo Perez. This, too, is a reality of the current marketplace, and another boost for KBO to find a home in the United States among its baseball-starved fans.

There are no shortage of places to read up on the KBO ahead of the season opener tomorrow. Here are links to a few of my favorites. (To go deeper, Baseball Prospectus has you covered.)

If picking up a new league feels daunting, don’t worry: you’ll recognize some familiar faces right away.

Bottom line: this is a massive win for all involved. Whether there are aftereffects for the KBO in a permanent way in the U.S. is unknown, just as so much else remains unsettled in this moment. But tomorrow, there will be live baseball on TV for you. That’s the thing you need to know right now.