By Jung Min-ho
Korea’s professional sports leagues have witnessed a meteoric rise in scale and fan base but are domestically oriented, forgoing their chance to market themselves globally and grow bigger.
One example is their official websites that, with the exception of the Korea Football Association (KFA), either offer no foreign language services or poor translations.
“Many foreigners, including myself, find it very difficult when visiting sports websites like those of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), Korean Basketball League (KBL) and KFA because there are only a few that provide English services,” said John F. Behrend Jr., a resident of Daegu from the United States. “A vast majority of sports websites do not even have foreign language services at all, which creates a problem for those of us who want to read about the players and the teams in the different leagues.”
According to the Korean Statistical Information Service, nearly 1 million foreigners currently reside in Korea but almost no sports website provides a proper language service for them, failing to take advantage of potential opportunities. And the KBO is no exception.
With more than 6 million tickets sold so far, with the season ending in October, baseball is by far the most popular sport in the nation over football, which had about 3 million through the turnstiles last year.
Surprisingly, however, the KBO website offers no foreign language service and only half of the eight clubs’ provide an extremely limited English service online where fans can only find things like a simple introduction to the team or the president’s message. Up-to-date news about game schedules and results are not to be found.
“It is really frustrating when I find one of the sports websites that says English but nothing actually comes up,” Behrend said.
“We are planning on improving the website after the season, but providing an English service is not included in the plan at this point,” KBO official said.
The situation at the KBL website is not too different. While plenty of information about fixtures and various statistics is provided in Korean, on the English version, the most fans can glean is the commissioner’s message, and KBL rules and procedures.
Not to mention the situation of other less popular sports such as volleyball.
Critics say that a limited English service can block the opportunities for players like Premier League footballer Park Ji-sung, who was unknown before the 2002 World Cup where he became a star.
They say “More English services for Korean sports and wise sports marketing would provide more opportunities for domestic players and the country may see a second and third Park Ji-sung as a result.”
Korea has cemented its status as a strong sporting nation earning 13 golds to finish fifth at the London Olympics this summer. In that respect, the scope of sporting talent the country can potentially utilize is tremendous and putting English language services on sports websites seems like a good first step.