Prosecutors Indict KBO Executive for 'Backdoor Payments in Professional Baseball Broadcast Rights'

An executive of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), accused of accepting bribes and giving preferential treatment to a specific company along with requests to maintain exclusive professional baseball broadcasting rights, has been brought to trial.

Korea Baseball Organization (KBO)
[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Criminal Division 3 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Kim Soo-min) indicted Lee, an executive of KBOP, a subsidiary in charge of the KBO league broadcasting rights business, without detention on charges including breach of trust and violation of the Act on the Regulation of Concealment of Criminal Proceeds on the 31st. Lee currently holds a concurrent position as a KBO executive.

Hong, CEO of Aclla Entertainment (Aclla), a KBO broadcasting rights sales agency that handed bribes to Lee, was also indicted without detention on charges including embezzlement under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes. Aclla is a major company that acts as the overseas broadcasting rights sales agency for the KBO League and operates TV channels such as SPOTV.

Lee is accused of receiving approximately 195 million KRW over 41 occasions from Hong between April 2013 and August 2016, under the pretense of providing false services through his spouse, in exchange for requests to maintain exclusive IPTV broadcasting rights. At that time, Lee was responsible for professional baseball broadcasting rights sales at KBOP.

The prosecution viewed that Aclla, which held exclusive cable TV and IPTV professional baseball broadcasting rights, made requests after IPTV broadcasting rights were granted in June 2013 to the three sports cable broadcasters (KBSN, MBC Sports Plus, SBS Sports). The investigation confirmed that preferential treatment was indeed given to Aclla.

With the establishment of the 10th team in 2013, increasing the number of professional baseball games from four to five per day, KBOP granted Aclla the IPTV broadcasting rights for the additional fifth game. Furthermore, during the IPTV broadcasting rights renewal in 2016, Aclla was granted broadcasting rights for two games exclusively, excluding other companies that previously held joint broadcasting rights.

The prosecution concluded that although Lee’s wife, an amateur baseball reporter, appeared to provide content to Aclla and receive payment, it was actually a disguised legitimate contract to receive bribes.

Hong was charged with embezzling funds from a separate company he operated to pay false service fees to Lee. The charge of mediation of breach of trust was not applied as the statute of limitations expired in August 2021. He is also accused of providing false advisory fees of approximately 310 million KRW to a former KBO executive and using about 780 million KRW of his company’s funds for apartment purchase payments and personal debt repayment.

Earlier, the Financial Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency referred Hong’s embezzlement charges to the prosecution in May last year but did not forward Lee’s breach of trust charges. Despite the prosecution’s request for reinvestigation, the police maintained their non-prosecution opinion. Subsequently, the prosecution demanded the referral and conducted supplementary investigations, including raiding the offices of KBO and KBOP in March.

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