Coupang Joins Hands with Son Heung-min and Ohtani... Loyalty Customer Expansion Strategy Works

MLB Seoul Series Anticipates Success
Membership Required for Viewing
New Customers Attracted Through Consecutive Events

Coupang's hosted event, the 'Major League Baseball (MLB) World Tour Seoul Series,' has been a commercial success.

According to industry sources on the 15th, Coupang's online video streaming service (OTT) provider Coupang Play, which participated as the broadcasting rights holder and marketing partner, sold out all tickets for the first and second games of the MLB Seoul Series. These games, held over two days starting from the 20th of this month at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, are the official MLB opening two-game series between the Los Angeles (LA) Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. All tickets sold out on the very day Coupang Play started ticket reservations. Notably, the first game, which had the character of an opening match, sold out all seats within 8 minutes of the start of reservations.

Photo of Shohei Ohtani and a person presumed to be his wife, who arrived in Korea ahead of their participation in the 'Major League Baseball (MLB) World Tour Seoul Series' [Image source=LA Dodgers Facebook]

Before the official MLB opening two-game series, Coupang Play is also selling tickets for four special games: Dodgers vs. Kiwoom Heroes and National Team vs. San Diego (March 17), San Diego vs. LG Twins and National Team vs. Dodgers (March 18), most of which are reported to be close to selling out.

All these games' tickets and live broadcasts are exclusively available through Coupang Play. Coupang Play is an OTT service introduced by Coupang in 2020, which can be used for free by subscribing to the paid membership 'Wow Membership.' This means that to watch or attend these games, one must subscribe to the Wow Membership.

'Coupang' hosts the 'Major League Baseball (MLB) World Tour Seoul Series'. Ticket reservations and live broadcasts are available through Coupang's own OTT service, Coupang Play.
[Photo by Coupang Play]

Previously, Coupang has been hosting sports events like the MLB Seoul Series annually since 2022. In 2022, they promoted a match inviting Tottenham Hotspur FC, featuring South Korea's national football team captain Son Heung-min, and last year, they hosted a visit match of Manchester City, who achieved the treble (Champions League, domestic league, and cup competition) in the 2022?2023 European professional football season. All these sports contents were exclusively provided to Coupang Wow members.

Coupang's annual hosting of sports events is interpreted as a strategy to attract new customers. By leveraging sports content, they encourage paid membership subscriptions and then aim for a 'lock-in effect' by providing services such as Rocket Delivery, thereby turning users into loyal customers.

Coupang offers new customers a one-month free trial of the Wow Membership, which can be canceled at any time. While there are many cases where users subscribe to the membership once to watch sports events and then cancel, Coupang's analysis shows that a significant number of customers remain Wow members. In fact, the number of Coupang Wow Membership subscribers surpassed 10 million for the first time in 2022, the first year of hosting sports events, and soared to 14 million last year.

Coupang plans to continuously expand such sports events in the future. Expanding the sports event category from football, which was limited until last year, to baseball this year is in line with this strategy. A Coupang representative said, "This year, we also plan to promote visits by prestigious clubs during the European professional football pre-season," adding, "The invited teams and exact schedules have not yet been decided."

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