'COVID-19 Impact' KBO Postpones Regular Season Opening to Mid-April

Jung Woon-chan, President of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), is presiding over the board meeting held on the morning of the 10th at the Baseball Hall in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Seulgi Kim] The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) has postponed the opening day of the regular season to sometime in April due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

On the 10th, KBO held a board meeting at the Baseball Hall to discuss the postponement of the 2020 season opening. The meeting was attended by KBO Commissioner Chung Un-chan and the presidents of nine teams, except for the LG Twins who were absent due to scheduling conflicts.

At the meeting, it was announced, "We listened to the opinion of Jeon Byeong-yul, former director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, regarding the current situation and future outlook of COVID-19, and decided to postpone the opening day with the utmost priority on the safety and health protection of fans and players."

They added, "We will decide the opening date after monitoring the situation, and the opening day will be finalized and announced two weeks in advance considering the preparation period for team operations and ticket reservations."

The KBO board aims for a normal league operation and plans to hold 144 games per team as a principle, while also considering games without spectators depending on the circumstances.

Earlier last month, the KBO Secretariat canceled all scheduled preseason games that were set to begin on March 14 due to the COVID-19 being elevated to a 'serious' stage.

The originally scheduled opening day for the 2020 professional baseball season was the 28th of this month.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.