TVING’s continued controversy over the incomprehension of baseball, when will it disappear

Controversy continued over the incomprehension of baseball by TVING, which acquired the exclusive broadcasting rights for Korean pro baseball with 10 days to go before the opening of the KBO League in 2024. Having held an information session on its service, TVing promised to enhance baseball expertise as soon as possible. 먹튀검증

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) signed a contract with CJ ENM for wired and wireless broadcasting rights in the KBO League (a total of 135 billion won for three years) on April 4. In the meantime, TVing, an OTT (Over The Top) service, has the exclusive right to resell broadcasting rights as well as wired and wireless broadcasting rights in Korea for all KBO league games from 2024 to 2026.

Under the contract with CJ ENM, Korean professional sports as well as the KBO League are facing new challenges. Pay-per-view broadcasting of professional sports has become a common trend all over the world. It was only seen in overseas professional sports broadcasting in Korea. However, as the KBO League, which boasts the most popularity, has started, pay-per-view broadcasting of Korean professional sports has also been put to the test.

Through a contract with CJ ENM, KBO wanted to improve the quality of broadcasting and provide more diverse content for baseball fans to enjoy the KBO League. CJ ENM also released a “Advertising Standard” plan of 5,500 won per month on the 4th, allowing only users who have joined TVing to watch live KBO League broadcasts for free from March 9 to April 30, the opening day of the exhibition game.

The KBO League exhibition game, which opened on the 9th, was a good opportunity to see TVing’s current broadcast capabilities ahead of the opening of the regular season. However, for now, the mainstream opinion is that it is disappointing. The basic service was criticized. The video of the game was uploaded in the first and second episodes like a drama, making it difficult to intuitively find the desired game. There was a delay of up to 30 seconds in the broadcast of the game, and complaints continued over the highlight video of the unknown flow.

The biggest criticism from fans was their ignorance of baseball. They misspelled the name of the player as Jeon Geun-woo from the Lotte Giants, and mistook his jersey number for the order of batting, thus coined the term “32nd batter.” They were also not familiar with basic baseball terms, such as “Save” for “Safe” and “Sacrifice Fly” for “Sacrifice Play.”

The tag for the highlight game was controversial in various communities on Wednesday. Not only tags that had nothing to do with the game between the LG Twins and the Samsung Lions, but also various derogatory comments such as “Last place (Lotte + Lotte)” and “Chip-sung (Chip + Samsung)” were also mentioned. It is possible to register various tags for many searches, but it is unnecessary to include derogatory comments of other teams that are not related to public videos.

In response to the continuous poor operation, TVing CEO Choi Joo-hee said at a briefing session on K-Ball service held at CJ ENM Center Talent Studio in Mapo-gu, Seoul on Wednesday, “I feel like I’ve been old for 10 years over the weekend. It is painfully accepting criticism that it is worse than free. I am well aware of the mixed reactions and criticisms since the exhibition game began. I was aware of them while monitoring communities throughout the weekend, and through this, I felt more responsible.”

Representative of TVing Choi Joo-hee, Chief Product Officer Jeon Taek-soo, and Chief Strategy Officer Lee Hyun-jin attended the briefing session and held a Q&A session with reporters.

All this happened in a short period of preparation. KBO held a competitive bid to select preferred bidders from December 4 last year to January 3 this year. CJ ENM was selected as the preferred bidder after obtaining the highest score in the overall evaluation at an evaluation meeting on January 5 involving board members of KBOP, KBO’s marketing subsidiary, and other players. After 40 days of preferred negotiations from January 8, a final agreement was reached on February 16.

Around this time, notices began to be posted on various manpower recruitment platforms that CJ ENM was recruiting contract workers related to video management or monitoring of sports content for less than a year, and it is currently in progress. CPO Jeon Taek-soo explained, “We have hired personnel to monitor the actual game and take charge of the service part that occurs during the game for two months. The process seems to have become an issue as it was recently discovered.”

However, even if the preparation period was short, the team could not avoid criticism that the existing team members didn’t know baseball too much. At the briefing session, some even asked if Thibing liked baseball and knew it well. It is known that Thibing has formed and is operating a Task Force team that includes about 50 to 60 developers to broadcast the KBO.

“I feel really sorry for that,” Choi said. “I feel like I made a mistake again when I first started baseball 20 years ago because I didn’t understand the walk. I feel a lot of responsibility, and I think we need to improve it quickly.” “In the process of coordinating with various partners regarding KBO broadcasting, we lacked areas where we needed to check our expertise and examine the results more carefully. We are in the process of streamlining this process, and we are making every effort to ensure that no such mistake will be made in the future,” Choi said. “Not everyone can be a baseball fan internally, but we are trying to enhance our professionalism.”

After the briefing session, various online communities mainly pointed out that the answer was regrettable because it came 10 days before the opening. With the existing number of people not understanding baseball through only a few days of exhibition games, it remains to be seen whether the recruitment of baseball professionals can be resolved by hiring short-term contract workers.

Teaving’s challenge carries significant meaning in that it has opened an era of paid broadcasting in professional sports. Fortunately, Teaving fully sympathized with this point and promised better service. Choi Joo-hee said, “I recognized the importance of aligning with various partners in KBO broadcasting while conducting the pilot game. I know there are still many concerns. I will definitely come to the opening game on the 23rd with proper service with a greater sense of responsibility.”

“We are planning to make a sincere investment in KBO broadcasting by promising proper broadcasting service before the opening of the show,” he said. “I will show you sincerely so that you can feel ‘this is why I get paid’ and ‘this is how I invest’.”