29 years after winning, no money feast?
It’s been a long wait for the LG Twins. It hasn’t been without investment, and it hasn’t been without power. It’s been 29 years, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the team had a ‘fluke’ season and lifted the championship trophy at least once. The ‘han’ that had been tied to the team for so long has finally been broken.
LG topped the Korean Series. They won the regular season. The drama was so dramatic that it signaled their exit from the ‘dark ages’.
The question is, what reward will the team receive for making history after such a long wait? LG is already talking about the Rolex watch that the late former chairman Koo Bon-moo bought for the Korean Series victory and the Awamori sake from Okinawa, Japan, which was buried for 26 years. In addition, the company said it would give a 10 million won prize to the MVP designated by coach Yoon Kyung-yeop at its own expense.
LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo made the long-awaited move. He personally visited Jamsil (Game 1), Suwon (Game 4), and Jamsil (Game 5) to show his love for the game. Not only Chairman Koo, but also executives of LG’s affiliated companies who have always loved baseball are excited. If the team wins the championship, even a ‘blank check’ will be cut.
Unfortunately for the players, there’s not much chance of such a money feast. That’s because the 10 KBO clubs have created their own rules for Korean Series championship rewards.
It started with the excessive “merit” controversy. There was a lot of disparity in the amount of victory payouts and bonuses paid out by each team, and it threatened to disrupt the order of the league. Limits on the Korean Series.
We subtracted nearly 50% of the total postseason revenue for operating expenses. From the remaining amount, the regular season winner gets 20% first. The remaining money is then distributed to the teams in the postseason, with the winner taking home 50% of it. Using last year’s SSG Landers championship as an example, out of 10.02 billion won in gate revenue, SSG took home about 3.46 billion won. They can receive up to 50% of this amount as a group subsidy. In total, this amounted to just over 5 billion won, which needs to be taxed. The actual amount left over was in the low 4 billion won range. Only this money can be distributed to the athletes. SSG paid the entire amount to the players. Some clubs choose to keep some of the money for club operations. The pie gets smaller when you give hundreds of millions of won to the manager first. In SSG’s case, the best performing A-level player took home around $120 million.
LG CEO Cha Myung-seok said, “We want to give the players as much as we can, but we can’t give them more. If you break the rules, you’ll be in trouble.”
It’s not an official rule. However, the KBO’s interpretation is that it is a board resolution and must be followed unconditionally. If a team is caught violating it, they will be fined 1 billion won and lose their second-round rookie draft pick. During the 2020 and 2021 seasons, when there were COVID-19 issues, an exception was made for teams that had no or very low gate receipts so that they could release some money.
At the time, the NC Dinos and KT Wiz “excitedly” spent the money. However, since last season, everything has been normalized, so players who heard the old rumors may complain, “Why are we getting less money?” Cha said.
Cha joked, “If the money doesn’t work, I’d like to give them LG appliances, but I don’t know what will happen with that.” He was both happy and confused.
In fact, the players already knew that they wouldn’t be getting a “billion-dollar” bonus. They were simply united in their desire to break a 29-year drought and join Young as champions. 아톰카지노 도메인
