Korea Pool

The Korean Baseball Organisation will receive a 30-per-cent increase in domestic rights fees for its top-tier league after media group CJ ENM secured exclusive streaming rights at a strong uplift.

Korean ecommerce company Coupang has been making aggressive bids for sports content since entering the market six months ago, culminating in a major bid for Tokyo 2020 Olympics rights in recent weeks.

The emergence of a ‘digital consortium’ to rival the long-standing Korea Pool of free-to-air broadcasters led the Korea Baseball Organisation to record-breaking rights income for its new cycle in the most recently concluded deals. But local industry experts see the digital consortium (DC) deal as a one-off and do not expect it to become a major player in the sports media-rights market.

The Korea Baseball Organisation has agreed a domestic media rights deal with the country's three main free-to-air broadcasters worth KRW54bn ($45m) per season for the four seasons from 2020 to 2023, according…