Would Oh Se-hoon now resolve his bad relations with sports?

“We’d like to urge Mayor of Seoul Oh Se-hoon and Mayor of Busan Park Hyung-jun elected through by-elections on Wednesday to fulfill their promises made to the KBO to improve baseball infrastructure,” the Korea Professional Baseball Players Association said on Thursday. “We hope that their promises will lead to a meaningful reflection for the development of South Korea’s professional baseball and the expansion of the base of baseball, rather than empty words and broken promises to simply earn votes,” the association added. Oh promised as a candidate to the KBO to quickly pursue the new construction of Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul and Park pledged to develop Busan’s Sajik Baseball Stadium into a multiplex entertainment space.

“The South Korean professional baseball has a basic structure of a team renting a stadium from its owner, a city government. Therefore, it is hard for teams to make complaints regarding stadium management by cities,” said one source. “As baseball teams are struggling financially due to limited ticket sales from COVID-19, we are hoping that the two mayors will pay more attention to the readjustment of stadium rents.”

Oh said he will consider lowering stadium rents and rents for stores in stadiums, including Gocheok Sky Dome, but Park remained more reserved by saying that careful review and societal consent are necessary.

Not only professional baseball but also the sports field are asking the mayor of Seoul to pay more attention to the development of the field. When Oh served as the mayor of Seoul from 2006 to 2011, he made decisions to demolish Dongdaemun Stadium, which used to be considered as a mecca of South Korean sports, and build the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, and to close the Jangchung Tennis Court as part of the plan to recover Nam Mountain.


Kyu-In Hwang kini@donga.com