[Official] Spring has come, the first in the history of KBO's 45 years 'The KBO League's popularity is already exploding!' → The largest number of spectators ever at exhibition games was 'new history' written

*This content was translated by AI.

The KBO League, born in 1982. The 2026 KBO exhibition game, which ended on the 24th, attracted a total of 442,247 spectators in 60 games, breaking the record for the largest number of spectators in a single season of exhibition games ever. The previous record was 321,763 in 2025.

KBO said on the 25th, "A total of 163,626 people visited the ballpark for two days on the 21st and 22nd, a week before the opening of the regular season."

In particular, on the 22nd, he set a new daily record of 83,584 spectators for the exhibition game, and after the 21st, which drew 80,42 spectators, he surpassed 80,000 daily spectators for two consecutive days, realizing his hot baseball popularity.

Accumulated attendance increased by 36.8% year-on-year.

The average number of spectators per game decreased by 4.2% to 7,337 compared to last year (7661 and 42 games), when it ranked first in the field due to the organization of Futures League stadium games (8 games including Icheon and Masan).

The average duration of the game was 2 hours and 52 minutes, an increase of 7 minutes compared to 2025, with 14.45 strikeouts and 7.88 walks per game, a decrease of 4.4% and an increase of 0.3%, respectively. The ERA rose to 5.25 from 3.89 last year, showing an increase of 35.0%.

The number of hits per game increased 12.7% from 16.17 to 18.23, and the number of home runs per game increased 57.1% from 1.26 to 1.98. The batting average also rose 9.0% year-on-year from 0.245 to 0.267.

Meanwhile, a total of 16 violations were reported in the exhibition games of Peach Clark, where the enforcement rules were changed to expedite the game. Pitcher violations occurred in the 11th inning and batter violations occurred in the 5th inning. Eight 18-second violations were the most applied when there was no runner.

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*This content was translated by AI.