The baseball cheering culture in South Korea started in the 1990s and continues to the present. There are 10 professional clubs and each club has its own way of cheering. The Korean cheering culture generally shares similar characteristics: collective, enthusiastic and empathetic. Baseball cheering is popular because of easy-to-learn fight songs, break-time events and a variety of foods. Baseball cheering is performed in most parts of a

ballpark A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into two field sections called the infield and the outfield. The infield is an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined in part ba ...

Cheering methods

Fight songs

Korean baseball

fight song A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand, these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...

s consist of the song for each club and songs for individual players. The fight song is a key element of Korea's baseball cheering culture. Cheering is done for the offence. Each batter has a personal fight song, sung when the batter enters the

batter's box A baseball field, also called a ball field or baseball diamond, is the playing field, field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term can also be used as a metonym for a baseball park. The term sandlot is sometimes used, although this ...

. The melodies of fight songs are taken from famous pop songs or K-pop songs, with lyrics rewritten to make it easy for the crowd to sing along. There are cell phone mobile applications that allow baseball fans to listen to the fight songs of clubs and players in advance.

Cheering tools

In the early days of Korea's professional baseball league, which was started in 1982, the most commonly used cheering tools were Korean traditional musical instruments, such as Buk, Jing, and

Kkwaenggwari The ''kkwaenggwari'' (; ) is a small flat gong used in traditional Korean music. It is made of brass and is played with a hard stick. It produces a distinctively high-pitched, metallic tone that breaks into a cymbal-like crashing timbre when st ...

. But nowadays, a typical example of a cheering tool is cylindrical, inflatable balloon sticks, now commonly known in the English-speaking world as

thundersticks Thundersticks, sometimes known as bambams, are long, narrow plastic balloons that are used as promotional noise makers. The noise is created when two thundersticks are struck together. They are most often used at sporting events. Origin and ...

. They are used for cheering by beating a pair of balloon sticks together to make a loud sound. The first club in the world to introduce balloon sticks was the

LG Twins The LG Twins () are a South Korean professional baseball team based in Seoul, South Korea. They are a member of the KBO League. The Twins play their home games at Jamsil Baseball Stadium, which they share with their rivals, the Doosan Bears. ...

. In the early 1990s they made balloon sticks out of

polyethylene Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging (plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including bott ...

. It has been evolving and now it is recyclable, as the sticks can be inflated for use then deflated for storage until the next game. Each club has its own color for the balloon sticks: SSG Landers is red,

Samsung Lions The Samsung Lions () are a South Korean professional baseball team founded in 1982. They are based in the southeastern city of Daegu and are members of the KBO League. Their home stadium is Daegu Samsung Lions Park. They have won the Korean Cha ...

is blue,

Doosan Bears The Doosan Bears () are a South Korean professional baseball team based in Seoul. Founded in 1982, they are a member of the KBO League. The Bears have won six Korean Series titles (1982, 1995, 2001, 2015, 2016, and 2019) and play their home game ...

is white,

Kia Tigers The Kia Tigers () are a South Korean professional baseball team founded in 1982 and based in the southwestern city of Gwangju. Until 2001, they were known as the Haitai Tigers. The Tigers are members of the KBO League and are the most successful ...

is yellow,

is red,

Kiwoom Heroes The Kiwoom Heroes () are a South Korean professional baseball, professional baseball team based in Seoul. They are a member of the KBO League. The Heroes play their home games at Gocheok Sky Dome in Gocheok-dong, a neighborhood located in the sou ...

is pink and

Hanwha Eagles The Hanwha Eagles () are a South Korean professional baseball team based in Daejeon that competes in the KBO League. The Eagles' home ballpark is Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark. They have won the Korean Series once, in 1999, and the league penn ...

is orange.Pg 71 - - Total pages: 108 Another interesting characteristic of Korean baseball cheering is fans wearing team uniform shirts with players' names. They wear this to feel a sense of belonging, solidarity and pride. Symbolic accessories and cheering tools play a similar role. There are stores in each stadium, so it is easy for supporters to buy cheer-related items.

Cheer leaders

The

Korea Baseball Organization The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO; ) is the Sport governing body, governing body for the professional leagues of baseball in South Korea. The KBO was founded in 1981 and has governed two leagues: the KBO League () and KBO Futures League ( (F ...

did not have standardized cheering methods until the 1990s. It was the audiences who became the initiators of cheering. The initial ways of cheering were clapping and spontaneous singing. But in time, official cheer leaders appeared. Cheer leaders and cheer leading captain are the ones who take the lead. Each club has one captain and four or five cheer leaders. Cheer leaders dance to the chant the captain is making. Basically, they start cheering with the club's fight songs, but sometimes they lead the cheering using the latest

K-pop K-pop (; an abbreviation of "Korean popular music") is a form of popular music originating in South Korea. It emerged in the 1990s as a form of youth subculture, with Korean musicians taking influence from Western Electronic dance music, danc ...

songs.

Cheering features of each stadium

Foods

Each stadium has specialty food associated with cheering. A typical example of baseball stadium food is " Chimaek," which is fried chicken and beer. There are various kinds of cheering foods featured at each

. These are often the representative foods of the region where the ballpark is located. In

Daegu Daegu (; ), formerly spelled Taegu and officially Daegu Metropolitan City (), is a city in southeastern South Korea. It is the third-largest urban agglomeration in South Korea after Seoul and Busan; the fourth-largest List of provincial-level ci ...

Samsung Lions Park, there are Napjak Mandu (flat grilled

dumpling Dumplings are a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of cooked dough (made from a variety of starchy sources), often wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, wheat or other flours, or potatoes, and it may be filled wi ...

s),

Samgyeopsal ''Samgyeopsal'' (), ''samgyeopsal-gui'' (), or grilled pork belly is a type of '' gui'' (grilled dish) in Korean cuisine. Etymology Directly translated from Korean, ''samgyeop-sal'' () means "three layer flesh", referring to striations of lea ...

(grilled

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig animal husbandry, husbandry dating back to 8000–9000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooke ...

belly) and

kebab Kebab ( , ), kebap, kabob (alternative North American spelling), kebob, or kabab (Kashmiri spelling) is a variety of roasted meat dishes that originated in the Middle East. Kebabs consist of cut up ground meat, sometimes with vegetables an ...

. In

Busan Busan (), officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's second list of cities in South Korea by population, most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.3 million as of 2024. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economi ...

Sajik Stadium, Buljokbal (spicy

Jokbal ''Jokbal'' () is a Korean dish consisting of pig's trotters cooked with soy sauce and spices.Jokbal
at

), Bulgopchang (spicy

Gopchang ''Gopchang'' () is a dish in Korean cuisine. It can refer to either the small intestines of cattle, the large intestines of pigs, or a '' gui'' (grilled dish) made of the small intestines. The latter is also called ''gopchang-gui'' (; "grilled int ...

) and

fast food Fast food is a type of Mass production, mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. ''Fast food'' is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheat ...

s such as

hamburger A hamburger (or simply a burger) consists of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. The patties are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, or chilis ...

s and

fried chicken Fried chicken, also called Southern fried chicken, is a dish consisting of chicken pieces that have been coated with seasoned flour or batter and pan-fried, deep fried, pressure fried, or air fried. The breading adds a crisp coating or ...

. In

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

Jamsil Stadium,

Jokbal ''Jokbal'' () is a Korean dish consisting of pig's trotters cooked with soy sauce and spices.Jokbal
at

(

pig's trotters A pig's trotter, also known as a pettitoe, is the culinary term for a pig's foot. It is used as a cut of pork in various dishes around the world, and experienced a resurgence in the late 2000s. Description image:Crubeens 2008.jpg, Pigs' trotters ...

), in

Gwangju Gwangju (; ), formerly romanized as Kwangju, is South Korea's list of cities in South Korea, sixth-largest metropolis. It is a designated Special cities of South Korea, metropolitan city under the direct control of the central government's Home ...

Kia Champions Field, Garak Guksu (boiled thin noodles in dried

anchovy An anchovy is a small, common forage fish of the Family (biology), family Engraulidae. Most species are found in marine waters, but several will enter brackish water, and some in South America are restricted to fresh water. More than 140 speci ...

broth), in Hanwha Life Insurance Eagles Park, Jinmi Tongdak and in

Suwon Suwon (; ) is the largest city and capital of Gyeonggi Province, South Korea's most populous province. The city lies approximately south of the national capital, Seoul. With a population of 1.2 million, Suwon has more inhabitants than Ulsan, tho ...

KT Wiz Park, chicken.

Cheering zones

Each baseball stadium has its sections of unique themed seats.

Incheon Incheon is a city located in northwestern South Korea, bordering Seoul and Gyeonggi Province to the east. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Incheon was home to just 4,700 people when it became an international port in 1883. As of February 2020, ...

Munhak Baseball Stadium has a "T Green Zone", "Happiness Zone", "Skybox Zone", and "

Barbecue Barbecue or barbeque (often shortened to BBQ worldwide; barbie or barby in Australia and New Zealand) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that employ live fire and smoke to coo ...

Zone." "T Green Zone" is located on the grassy hillside which is available to set up a tent or lay a mat. This zone is recommended to family audiences because it is not too crowded and there is a kid's park near by. "Happiness Zone" is located at the backstop and the seats are equipped with tables. "Barbecue Zone" can accommodate up to 200 people at once. It is Korea's first stadium to provide fans a way to cook meat while watching baseball. At the store inside the stadium they sell meat and lend grills. "Skybox Zone" is located indoors, so watching baseball game isn't restricted by bad weather. Lastly, there is a " Homerun Couple Zone" in the outfield

bleacher Bleachers (North American English), or stands, are raised, tiered rows of benches found at sports-fields and at other spectator events. Stairways provide access to the horizontal rows of seats, often with every other step enabling access to a ...

s. Many couples enjoy dating there. Jamsil stadium's "Exciting Zone" allows fans to see players close up, but as this zone is close to the playing field, audiences have to be cautious about safety and borrow a

helmet A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets (e.g., a policeman's helmet in the United Kingdom) without protecti ...

KT Wiz park has a "

Hite Hite or HITE may refer to: *HiteJinro, a South Korean brewery **Hite Brewery *Hite (surname) *Hite, California, former name of Hite Cove, California *Hite, Utah Historic Hite is a flooded ghost town at the north end of Lake Powell along the Co ...

Pub" and "

Playstation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

Lounge." "Hite Pub" is Korea's first sports pub and the cost of one glass of beer and food is included in the ticket price. In the "Playstation Lounge" audiences can enjoy the match in the assigned room in which a PlayStation is equipped.

Daejeon Daejeon (; ) is South Korea's list of cities in South Korea, fifth-largest metropolis, with a population of nearly 1.5 million. Located in a central lowland valley between the Sobaek Mountains and the Geum River, the city is known both as a ...

Hanwha Life Insurance Eagles Park has an "Outfield Lawn Seat" and "Outfield Fieldbox." At the "Outfield Lawn Seat", audiences can enjoy the game with the feeling of a picnic. The "Outfield Fieldbox" is where audiences can watch the game from seats inside the box.

Sajik Stadium has a "Rocket Battery Zone." There, people can enjoy the baseball game and camping at the same time, so it is recommended to family fans. These two stadiums both have an "Exciting Zone." This zone is close to the ground so audiences can enjoy the players’ dynamic game. It can be interesting to watch the game at ground eye level, but as many

foul ball In baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of ...

s fly toward the seats, children are not allowed to enter as it could be somewhat dangerous. "Tigers Family Seat" is most famous at

Kia Champions Field. There are seats and tables for four to six people, so audiences can watch the game comfortably.

Masan Masan () is an administrative region of Changwon, a city of South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. It was formerly an independent city from 1949 until 30 June 2010, when it was absorbed to Changwon along with Jinhae District, Jinhae. Masan was ...

Sports Complex Baseball Stadium has the "Dinos Mattress Seat." Audiences can watch the game lying on comfortable mattresses. They can borrow a

parasol An umbrella or parasol is a folding canopy (building), canopy supported by wooden or metal ribs that is mounted on a wooden, metal, or plastic pole. It is usually designed to protect a person against rain. The term ''umbrella'' is traditionall ...

and beach towel. And there is a unique stand made up of wooden decks. It is for family audiences and can accommodate six people. Audiences can party there, and no one complains about making noise.

Cheering cultures of each club

The clubs of the Korean professional baseball league each have a unique cheering culture. Fans of the Lotte Giants use

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s and orange

plastic bag A plastic bag, poly bag, or pouch is a type of container made of thin, flexible, plastic film, nonwoven fabric, or plastic textile. Plastic bags are used for containing and transporting goods such as foods, produce, Powder (substance), powders, ...

s as cheering tools. Newspapers are rolled up and swayed in the air. People wear plastic bags on their heads, some knotted to look like

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white ...

ears. The plastic bags were initially intended to handle garbage, but the supporters started to use them as a cheering tool. The Lotte Giants also have unique

chant A chant (from French ', from Latin ', "to sing") is the iterative speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two main pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of no ...

s, such as 'Azura' and 'Ma'. 'Azura' is a

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

word, implying 'yield a foul ball/home run ball to children', and 'Ma' is a dialect for calling children, implying 'throw the ball forward' (used when the pitcher throws to first base to check a runner). In response to 'Ma', supporters of other clubs make a counter-chant such as 'Wa' (a dialect of 'why').

went through a decline of organized cheering starting in 2009. This led many baseball fans to start cheering for visiting teams. The Hanwha Eagles are trying to figure out how to keep track of the new trends and revitalize their fan base. They started to use Fanbots, a cheering

robot A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...

made as part of the social cheering campaign for fans who want to support the team but cannot attend the games in person. Anytime, anywhere, if people upload a cheering message via web or mobile, the message is sent to a Fanbot in real time and to be displayed on the board Fanbot is holding. The Hanwha Eagles are the first club to use Fanbots. The biggest feature of the

is that there are many fans who go cheering at

away game A road game or away game is a sports game where the specified team is not the host and must travel to another venue. Most professional teams represent cities or towns and amateur sports teams often represent academic institutions. Each team h ...

s. In addition, the percentage of female audience members is high. In the 2015 season, the percentage of female audiences was 43 percent for all teams, while for the Doosan Bears, it was 53 percent. For this reason, Doosan Bears is the only team in the league to have separate parts for the male and female in cheering songs. The

KIA Tigers The Kia Tigers () are a South Korean professional baseball team founded in 1982 and based in the southwestern city of Gwangju. Until 2001, they were known as the Haitai Tigers. The Tigers are members of the KBO League and are the most successful ...

have their base in

, so they have many fans in Jeolla-do. They support the team regardless of their performance. The LG fans are similar in this regard. The official Kia Tigers team color is red but they use yellow balloon sticks for cheering. Some fans call the yellow balloon sticks a ' pickled radish'.

Globalization

Korea's baseball cheering culture has been observed to be spreading to other nations. The fight song for

Eric Thames Eric Allyn Thames ( ; born November 10, 1986) is an American former professional baseball first baseman and outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Milwaukee Brewers, and Washington Nati ...

is one example. Thames, who had been a member of Korea's

Changwon Changwon (; ) is the capital and largest city of South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea (with a population of 1,025,702 ), and the 11th largest city of the South Korea, country. A port city, Changwon is bordered by Masan Bay to the south, and the ...

NC Dinos The NC Dinos () are a South Korean professional baseball team based in Changwon. They are a member of the KBO League. Since 2019, their home stadium is Changwon NC Park. NC Dinos are owned by video game developer NCSoft Corporation. History On ...

(2014–2016), returned to U.S.

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

with the

Milwaukee Brewers The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. The Brewers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Di ...

in 2017. His Korean theme song was played when he came to bat for Milwaukee. The song resounded through the Milwaukee stadium. His teammates, who did not know about the idea of personal fight songs, showed interest and hummed its melody.

Challenges

Crisis

Recently the issue of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

for club chants or fight songs has emerged. Clubs want to make their song legitimate and are negotiating with the original copyright holders to use the fight songs familiar to the fans, but as the legal wrangling is ongoing, the clubs have either made some changes to the songs or used the songs without license to do so. The copyright owners for the original songs have prepared

class action A class action is a form of lawsuit. Class Action may also refer to: * ''Class Action'' (film), 1991, starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio * Class Action (band), a garage house band * "Class Action" (''Teenage Robot''), a 2002 e ...

lawsuits. Traditionally, the fight songs of each club were created without thought to the original copyright holder. The song would be altered by changing the lyrics, but this violates the author's

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

. South Korean copyright law largely protects both the author's

property rights The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership), is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their Possession (law), possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely ...

and

moral rights Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions. The moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work p ...

. Property rights refer to the rights to the media that is owned by the creators. Usually, content producers are paid for allowing others to use their creation. Moral rights in South Korea are related to the issue of the creator's psychological profit. This includes the right to maintain the identity of the content. This means that anyone using the author's creation must not change its original form. However, the clubs usually modify the original lyrics or tune. Therefore, even though the clubs often pay a large sum for the author's property rights, the fight songs violate the author's moral rights.

Criticism

Korea's baseball cheering culture is largely considered to be positive, but some issues have arisen over the course of its development. First is the "Azura Culture", the cheering culture of the

Lotte Giants The Lotte Giants () are a South Korean professional baseball, professional baseball team based in Busan. They are a member of the KBO League. The Lotte Giants are owned by Lotte Corporation. From 1982 through 1985, they played at Gudeok Baseball ...

. This culture is semi-coercive rather than voluntary. Initially, this culture began with the expectation that if adult spectators pass a foul or home run ball to a child, the conflicts between the adults to get the ball might decrease. This culture also has the purpose of presenting a child with a good memory of watching a baseball game. However, in the coercive atmosphere, there are a few audiences with bad manners who take the ball away from the teenagers. As a result, there is a growing criticism about whether "Azura Culture" is truly a good one. There is an ongoing debate online. Some even refer to "Azura Culture" as "robbery in the baseball stadium". As people give the ball to the child before shouting "Azura", the excitement of shouting it is decreasing. Recently, other criticisms have been raised. Boisterous cheering culture makes watching the baseball game more joyful, but for some people who want to watch the game quietly, it is annoying. Residents neighboring the ballpark also suffer from the noise. Residents living in the apartment near Kia Champions Field Ball Park sued

city and the

club. As Korea's

ballparks A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into two field sections called the infield and the outfield. The infield is an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined in part ba ...

are located near very populated regions, it seems to be necessary to resolve the conflict between local residents and the baseball field.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{Cite news, url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/world/asia/to-understand-korean-baseball-head-to-the-stands.html, title=In Korean Baseball, Louder Cheers and More Squid, last=Sang-Hun, first=Choe, date=2014-11-02, work=The New York Times, access-date=2017-12-12, language=en-US, issn=0362-4331 {{Cite web, url=https://abcnews.go.com/International/inside-south-korean-baseballs-elaborate-cheer-culture/story?id=50817262, title=A look inside South Korean baseball's elaborate 'cheer culture', date=2017-11-01, website=ABC News, access-date=2017-12-12 {{Cite news, url=http://www.hankookilbo.com/v/e96bb20ad4eb4b04880cf4e4b76d10d9, title=힐만 버거ㆍ민우 바나나… 난 요거 먹으러 야구장 간다, work=

Hankook Ilbo ''Hankook Ilbo'' () is a Korean-language daily newspaper in Seoul, South Korea. As of 2017, it had a daily circulation of about 213,200. It was previously published by the Hankook Ilbo Media Group, however following an embezzlement scandal i ...

, access-date=2017-11-20, language=ko Baseball culture Baseball in South Korea Cheerleading