Baseball cheering culture in South Korea

Korea's Baseball Cheering Culture

The Korean baseball cheering culture started in the early 2000s 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 empathic. This seems to be the result of a development process of Korean society. Especially, in the case of baseball cheering, it is even popular among women because of the easy melody of fight songs, break-time events, and a variety of foods. Moreover, baseball cheering is performed in most places of a ballpark.

Cheering Methods

Fight Songs

Korean baseball fight songs consist of the song for each club and the song for individual players. The fight song is a key element of the exciting and dynamic Korea's cheering culture. Because cheering is done when attacking, only the batter has a personal fight song, and the fight song is sung when the batter enters the batter's box. It is easy for the crowd to sing along because the melody of the fight song is based on the famous pop song or the K-pop song with only lyrics rewritten. There is also an application that allows baseball fans to listen to the fight song of clubs and players in advance.

Cheering Tools

In the early days of baseball professional league, the cheering tools were usually Korean traditional musical instruments, such as Buk, Jing, and Kkwaenggwari. But nowadays, a typical example of a cheering tool is a cylindrical Balloon Stick. The loud sound made by one pair of balloon stick gives the impression of one united form of cheering.

The first club to introduce balloon stick was LG. In the early 1990s, they made the balloon stick out of polyethylene, and it soon gained popularity. It is meaningful in that they were the first in the world to use balloon stick as a cheering tool. It is made to be recyclable, so it can be blown with straw while cheering, and air can be taken out for storing.

There is a typical color for the cheering tool for each club. SK is red, Samsung is blue, Doosan is white, Kia is yellow, LG is red, Nexen is pink, and Hanhwa is orange.

Another interesting characteristic of Korean baseball cheering is "wearing uniform." There are uniforms of each player, so supporters choose their favorite uniform and wear it while cheering. Many people have multiple uniforms and wearing those gives them the sense of belonging, solidarity, and proud. Symbolic accessories and cheering tools play the similar role. There is a pop-up store in each stadium, so it has a high accessibility, and the percentage of purchase is also quite high.

Cheer Leaders

Since the foundation of the Korea Baseball Organization(KBO) there wasn't a standardized cheering method for a while. It was the audiences who became the subject of the cheering, and all were just the clapping and instant singing. But as the 1990s are passing by, with the appearance of the official cheerleaders, the standard professional baseball cheerleading was made. Cheer leaders and cheer leading captain are the ones who take the lead in Korean baseball cheering nowadays. Each club has 1 captain and 4~5 cheering leaders. Cheer leaders dance to the chant the captain is making. Basically, they prepare cheering with the club's fight songs, but sometimes they lead the cheering using the latest K-pop songs.

Cheering Features of Each Stadium

Cheering Foods

A typical example of a baseball stadium food is a "Chimaek". Fried chicken and beer make watching baseball even more enjoyable. There are a variety of cheering foodstuffs by each ballpark, which is often the representative food of the region. In Daegu Samsung Lions Park, there are Napjak Mandu(flat grilled dumpling), Samgyeopsal(Korean-style bacon) and kebab in Busan Sajik Stadium, Buljokbal(spicy Jokbal), Bulgopchang(spicy Gopchang), and fast food such as hamburger and fried chicken in Seoul Jamsil Stadium, Jokbal(Pigs' Trotters) in Gwangju Kia Champions Field, Garak Guksu(boiled thin noodles in dried anchovy broth) in Hanwha Life Insurance Eagles Park in Daejeon and Jinmi Tongdak(Chicken) in Suwon KT wiz Park.

As portable beer sales are allowed again, you can see a "Beer Boy" at the baseball stadium, who carries a barrel of beer which weighs about 15kg. However, you can not bring canned beer into the ballpark, which is to foster a pleasant game and prevent garbage.

Cheering Zones

Each baseball stadium has its unique themed seats.

Incheon Munhak Baseball Stadium has a "T Green Zone", "Happiness Zone", "Skybox Zone", and “Barbecue 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 this zone is not too crowded and there is an kid's park near by. "Happiness Zone" is located at the backstop and the seat is equipped with the table. "Barbecue Zone" can accommodate up to 200 people at once. It is Korea’s first stadium to cook meat while watching baseball. At the store inside the stadium, they sell meat and lend grills. "Skybox Zone" is located inside the room, so watching baseball game isn't restricted by the weather in this zone. Lastly, there is a “Homerun Couple Zone” in the outfield bleachers. Many couples enjoy dating there.

Jamsil stadium's "Exciting Zone" has a merit in that audiences can see the player in the short distance. But as this zone is close to the stadium, audiences have to be cautious about safety and borrow a helmet. Moreover, table seat at this stadium has a table to put their belongings and foods.

Suwon KT Wiz park has a "Hite Pub" and "Playstation 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 Playstation equipped.

Daejeon Hanwha Life Insurance Eagles Park has a "Outfield Lawn Seat" and "Outfield Fieldbox." At the "Outfield Lawn Seat", audiences can enjoy the game with the feeling of picnic. "Outfield Fieldbox" is the seat where audiences can watch the game inside the box. Busan Sajik Stadium has a "Rocket Battery Zone", a sort of glamping zone inside the stadium. 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 "Exciting Zone." This zone is close to the ground so audiences can enjoy the players’ dynamic game there. It can be interesting to watch the game at the ground eye level, but as many foul balls fly toward the seat, children are not allowed to enter. It could be somewhat dangerous, but you can enjoy the endless charm of the baseball.

"Tigers Family Seat" is most famous at Gwangju Kia Champions Field. The seat consists of seat for four and six people and it enables family audiences to seat at the table and comfortably watch the game.

Masan Sports Complex Baseball Stadium has "Dinos Mattress Seat." Audiences can watch the game lying on comfortable mattress. They can borrow a parasol and beach towel. And there is a unique stand made up of wooden deck. 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

There are clubs which has a unique cheering culture. Lotte Giants uses newspapers and orange plastic bags as cheering tools. Newspapers are folded in half, then torn, finally rolled up and used to sway in the air. Plastic bags are wrapped after blown and then put on the head. Women make a plastic bag look like Mickey Mouse ears and wear it. In the case of plastic bags, it was initially distributed from the cheering squad to handle garbage, but the supporters started to use it as a cheering tool. It soon became a representative cheering culture of Lotte Giants. Lotte Giants also has unique chants, such as 'Azura' and 'Ma'. 'Azura' is a dialect, implying 'yield a foul ball/home run ball to children', and 'Ma' is a dialect for calling youngers which implies 'throw the ball forward' (used when the pitcher throws the check). In order to respond to 'Ma', supporters of other clubs also made a chant such as 'Wa' (a dialect of 'why').

Hanhwa eagles uses "Fanbot". It is a cheering robot made as part of the social cheering campaign for fans who want to support the team at the ballpark but cannot go in person. Anytime, anywhere, if you upload a cheering message via web or mobile, the message will be sent to the Fanbot in real time and be displayed on the board Fanbot is holding. Fanbot was introduced in Hanwha Eagles for the first time in the world.

https://youtu.be/BBiRLYu8Wjo

Globalization

Korea’s baseball cheering culture is stretching around the globe. The fight song for Eric Thames can be one example. Eric Thames who had been the member of Changwon NC Dinos returned to MLB Milwaukee in 2017. And with him followed his theme song which was used to cheer him up in Korea’s stadium. The fight song resounded through the Milwaukee stadium. His teammates who didn't know about the personal fight song, showed interest in the cheerful fight song and hummed its melody. And Milwaukee Brewers introduced Eric Thames's fight song used while he was at KBO League NC Dinos by Club Twitter. This can be the example of the globalization of Korean baseball cheering culture.

Problems

Crisis

The copyright problem of the club fight songs is not solved yet.

Clubs are negotiating with the original copyright holder to keep use the fight songs familiar to the fans, but as agreement is not easily made, they changed or illegally used it. Therefore, composers of the original song prepared the class action.

Until nowadays, fight songs of each club was made without the agreement of the copyright holder in a way of arranging or changing the lyrics of the song. But this has a problem of violating the author's moral rights.

The copyright law largely protects author's property rights and author's moral rights. Property right refers to the right regarding the property owned by the authors about their creation. Usually, authors get paid for allowing others to use their creation. Author's moral rights which is currently related to the issue is the right to be protected of creation's psychological profit. This includes 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 fight songs used by the clubs are usually modified its original forms and lyrics. Therefore, even though the clubs are paying a lot for the author's property rights, the club's fight songs violate the author's moral rights.

Criticisms

Korea's baseball cheering culture has many good aspects, but recently few problems arose. First is the "Azura Culture", cheering culture of Lotte Giants. This culture is semi-coercive rather than voluntary.

Initially, this culture began with the expectation that if they pass the foul or home run ball to the 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 few audiences with bad manners who take the ball away by force or even take it away from the young student. As a result, there is a growing criticism about whether "Azura Culture" is truly a good one. There is an endless ongoing debate online. Some even refer to "Azura Culture" as "Robbery in baseball stadium." As people give the ball to the child before shouting "Azura", the excitement of shouting it is decreasing.

Recently, other matters have brought up. One is a noise problem. Boisterous cheering culture makes watching the baseball game more joyful, but for some audiences who want to watch the game quietly, it would be a drag. Not only some audiences but also neighbors are suffering because of the noise. Residents inhabiting in the apartment near Kia Champions Field Ball Park sued Gwangju city and Kia Tigers club in a claim for damages.

Second problem is a night light. Because of the strong lighting at the stadium at night, whenever there is a night game, neighbors are suffering. Some even changed their living space to the opposite direction of the stadium. Thereby, residents inhabiting near the stadium are trying to file a petition to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea and preparing an additional suit along with the noise damages.

As Korea's Ball Park is located near very populated region, it seems to be necessary to resolve the conflict between local residents and the baseball field.