'10 million President Hu Jie-yeon will receive the grand prize. "The era of industrialization of professional baseball has opened.""
Nov 11, 2024
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The Ilgu Association, a Korean professional baseball OB group, held a selection committee to select the winners of the "2024 Nutridi Day Ilgu Award".
The grand prize for the honor was decided by the president of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) Koo Hu-yeon. After passing through Gyeongnam High School and Korea University, Huh played as a baseball player at Hanil Bank and gained leadership experience by becoming manager of Cheongbo Pintos in 1986. In addition, he was selected as an MBC commentator with the launch of professional baseball, and was called the "Vin Scully of Korea" for his extensive baseball knowledge and friendly commentary while holding the microphone until 2021.
He was then appointed as the KBO president for the first time as a baseball player in March 2022, leading the golden age of the KBO League.
Governor Huh continued his innovation after becoming the president of the KBO, just as he tried to establish baseball terms and improve infrastructure when he was a commentator. In particular, this year, it introduced a number of systems, including automatic pitching judgment systems (ABS), defensive shift restrictions, and base size expansion, and it became the stepping stone to open the era of '10 million spectators' for the first time ever.
ABS has captured the hearts of the MZ generation, which values fairness. Since he was a commentator, he has worked hard to expand and improve the baseball stadium's infrastructure as a space where the baseball stadium enjoys cost-effective leisure activities, which has attracted women's hearts and led to the expansion of female fans.
In addition, he signed a three-year wired and wireless broadcasting rights contract with Teving for 135 billion won (45 billion won per year). This is the largest amount in Korean sports history, and it is expected that all 10 clubs will record a surplus as it is a big help to the club's finances. Teving made short videos available to fans, which became a 'thing to enjoy' for professional baseball.
In other words, it opened the era of industrialization of professional baseball, the long-cherished dream of Korean baseball. This was possible because he is a longtime commentator and knows what fans want and has administrative experience such as the chairman of the KBO Baseball Development Committee. On the reason for selecting the Grand Prize for Ilgu, Ilguhoe Chairman Kim Kwang-soo said, `President Huh showed his determination not to make a decision on the desk, but to identify the site and put a sword on the fundamental system"It showed well what role the KBO head should play in leading Korean baseball." he evaluated.
The '2024 Nutritional Day Ilgu Award', which was selected as the grand prize by President Hu Jie-yeon, will be held at Versailles Hall on the 3rd floor of the Rivera Hotel in Seoul at 11 a.m. on December 10. It will be broadcast live across the country through IB Sports Channel and Naver. In addition, the winners of the nine categories, including the best hitter and the best pitcher, will be announced in mid-November.
indyk@sportschosun.com
