As the KBO professional baseball season kicks off, competition in marketing among retailers is intensifying. Amid this, there is ongoing speculation about the background behind the Lotte Group-affiliated baseball team's refusal to collaborate with SPC Samlip's 'KBO Bread,' which is currently the most popular KBO-related product this year.

According to industry sources on the 26th, Lotte Giants was left out of the 'KBO Bread' lineup, which sold 1 million packs within just three days of its release. KBO Bread is a product that embodies the characteristics of nine professional baseball teams, excluding the Lotte Giants, in the form of bread. Inside each KBO Bread package is a randomly inserted 'Tibucil' (removable sticker), one of 215 types featuring photos of each team's representative players and mascots.

Each of the nine teams has its own product: 'Tigers Tiger Choco Roll,' 'Lions Blueberry Pastry,' 'Twins Strawberry Sandwich,' 'Bears Bear Paw Honey Bread,' 'Wiz Victory Choco Vanilla Sandwich,' 'Landers Salt Butter Spaceship Bread,' 'Eagles Hot Toowoomba Bread,' 'Dinos Dinosaur Egg Black Sesame Cupcake,' and 'Heroes Purple Sweet Potato Bread.'

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Lotte Group appears to have not participated because Lotte Wellfood, a competitor of Samlip, is one of its affiliates. SPC Samlip, the manufacturer of KBO Bread, reportedly requested Lotte's cooperation through the KBO, but Lotte declined.

An industry insider explained, "Because the players' portrait rights are involved with the Tibucil stickers, each team must be consulted individually. Lotte decided not to participate."

This is not the first time the Lotte team has opted out of a collaborative product between the Korea Baseball Organization and a confectionery company. In July last year, Haitai Confectionery released a 'regional limited edition Homerun Ball' for baseball fans, which also excluded the Lotte Giants and was launched in nine varieties.

There have been repeated cases where only the Lotte Giants were excluded from various KBO collaboration products, such as this year's Woongjin Foods 'Haneulbori' KBO edition and last year's Samsung Everland 'Lesser Panda' team dolls.

Among Lotte Group companies, only 7-Eleven plans to release the 'Professional Baseball Collection Card' again this year, as it did last year. Highly anticipated affiliates like Lotte Wellfood and Lotte Chilsung Beverage are reportedly not considering related marketing activities.

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This is considered unusual, given that Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dongbin has shown a particular 'love for baseball.' Chairman Shin has often expressed his special affection for baseball, saying, "The power of sports is tremendous." Last year, he visited the stadium with Lotte Group executives and employees to deliver Lotte Hotel meal vouchers to the team. Chairman Shin is also the owner of both the Korean Lotte Giants and the Japanese Chiba Lotte Marines.

Industry insiders suggest that Lotte Group's liquidity crisis rumors at the end of last year may have affected the sports team. At the end of last year, Lotte pledged Lotte World Tower (Jamsil, Seoul), a core asset worth 6 trillion won, as collateral to banks to strengthen Lotte Chemical's corporate bonds and focused on securing liquidity by selling Lotte Rental. Another food industry insider explained, "Lotte is unlikely to sell the baseball team, but since the profits from baseball marketing are not significant, they seem to be tightening their belts."

The poor performance of the Lotte Giants is also cited as a reason for hesitating large-scale marketing. In fact, the last time the Lotte Giants advanced to the postseason was in 2017. After Hanwha Eagles made the postseason in third place in 2018, the Lotte Giants have become the team with the longest postseason drought among the ten teams.

Regarding this, a high-ranking official from Lotte Giants stated, "The reason for not participating in the KBO Bread collaboration is due to overlapping business with Lotte Wellfood," adding, "Not only with Lotte Wellfood, but we have traditionally not collaborated on business areas that overlap with other group companies." He continued, "As for goods marketing, we are preparing collaborations with various group companies not only before the season opener but also during the season," and added, "We have opened an official brand store on Lotte On for marketing, and collaborated with Korea Fujifilm to create a photo card machine."

Meanwhile, the record-breaking sales of KBO Bread are interpreted as the result of baseball fans buying bread to collect Tibucil stickers featuring their favorite teams and players. Previously, when Samlip re-released 'Pokemon Bread' in February 2022, it sold 10 million units in 43 days thanks to the Tibucil sticker craze.

In fact, social media is flooded with posts showing off Tibucil stickers. Some users share posts about obtaining their desired player's Tibucil sticker, while others are exchanging stickers on online secondhand marketplaces.

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Not only are Tibucil stickers being exchanged, but 'premium trading' has also emerged. In particular, the Tibucil sticker of Kim Doyoung (KIA Tigers), who reportedly ranked first in KBO League uniform MD product sales last season, is in high demand. On Danggeun Market, Kim Doyoung's Tibucil sticker is listed for as much as 10 to 20 times the price of the bread itself, at around 10,000 to 20,000 won.