Major League Baseball is still suspended, but that is not the only baseball league in the world. South Korea, where COVID-19 reached earlier and is now well-contained, will be opening the 2020 season for their baseball league, the Korea Baseball Organization or KBO, on May 6. Now, thanks to an exclusive partnership with ESPN, these games will be televised around the world. Per ESPN:
“We’re thrilled to become the exclusive English-language home to the KBO League and to showcase its compelling action and high-level of competition,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN’s executive vice president of programming. “We have a long-standing history of documenting the game of baseball and we’re excited to deliver these live events to sports fans.”
While this will be a little different experience that what we are used to with MLB, that is sort of what adds to the fun. With many people working from home and most games airing at 4:30 am CST on ESPN2, it will be the perfect thing for baseball fans to put on during the day. The KBO is full of talent (and some potential future MLBers) that we would either have to wait to watch or would never see otherwise. Plus there are some former MLB players extending their professional careers.
And of course, the famed batflips:
THREAD: To prepare you for the debut of the KBO on ESPN in less than 10 hours, I did @edsbs' bidding and compiled the nastiest, sauciest, most disrespectful, outright felonious bat flips from the league that does nasty, saucy, disrespectful, felonious bat flips better than any.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 4, 2020
The opening game between the NC Dinos and Samsung Lions will air on ESPN at 2 a.m. CST. Here is the rest of the schedule:
ESPN will air six KBO games per week. Here's the schedule for this week! pic.twitter.com/QB0mb9srDZ
— Jared Diamond (@jareddiamond) May 4, 2020
(H/T to jdogg for the link!)
Former MLB Players Getting Ready To Play In The KBO | MLB Trade Rumors
ESPN to televise Korea Baseball Organization games | ESPN
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