글로벌과 로컬의 갈등과 융합 접점으로서의 한국 프로야구

Abstract

Purpose – Korean Professional Baseball maintained its steady growth despite the big wave of globalization in baseball. In this line, the object of this research was to explore how the introduction of foreign player system, Korean players advance to overseas leagues, and international baseball events have affected Korean Professional Baseball. Design, data, and methodology – Qualitative research methodology, literature review and in-depth interview with professional baseball experts and journalists, was utilized to achieve the purpose of this study. Review of news articles regards to professional baseball’s globalization was executed. Interviews was executed from Jan 2020 to April 2021. Result – The findings of this study showed that introduction of foreign players system and Korean players advance to overseas leagues have affected in improvement of Korean National Baseball Team’s performances. Korean baseball has a unique cheering culture as many female and young fans come to see baseball stars who have become national heroes due to the nationalism triggered by international competitions. Conclusions – This Study shows that Korean professional baseball has become very popular as its own cheering culture, but some detail aspects such as terms and trend of using data for baseball are becoming similar to those of the Major League.