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[이데일리 스타in 이석무 기자] The new team, Shinsegae Group, will face off with Lotte Giants, the’distribution rival’, at the opening game of the 2021 season KBO League.
On the 2nd, KBO announced the schedule of the regular season for the 2021 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO.
The 2021 KBO regular season kicks off on April 3, with a total of 720 matches, 16 matches between teams and 144 matches per team. From July 19th to August 9th, the KBO regular season will be temporarily suspended due to the participation of the national baseball team in the Tokyo Olympics.
The opening game was organized into the home games of the top five teams in the final team rankings in 2019. Jamsil (KIA-Doosan), Literature (Lotte-SK (Shinsegae)), Changwon (LG-NC), Suwon (Hanhwa-KT), and Gocheok (Samsung-Keeum). 4th place LG was organized as the home game of 6th place KT as Doosan and the stadium overlap.
The most interesting matchup takes place at Munhak Stadium. Shinsegae Group E-Mart, which acquired SK, and Lotte, which was the lowest team in the 2019 season, will face off in the opening game. The big match between distribution rivals happened by chance.
Shinsegae Group and Lotte are’dinosaurs’ in the Korean distribution industry. Of course, when comparing the sales scale of the group and the history of the professional baseball team, Lotte is far ahead, but at least in baseball, SK, which is recently acquired by Shinsegae Group E-Mart, is far ahead.
In this opening game, we are planning to play home games as a top team in the 2019 season. Lotte vs. Shinsegae Group’s distribution rivalry at the baseball field is expected to heat up from the beginning of the season.
The 2020 integrated championship team NC Dinos will play the opening game of the 2021 season with LG Twins. Doosan Bears, who lost to NC and took second place in the Korean Series, will play the opening game against the KIA Tigers in Jamsil.
Hanwha Eagles’ first foreigner command tower coach Carlos Subero will play his first match against kt wiz at Suwon KTWiz Park on April 3rd. LG Twins, the 4th place team in the 2019 season, has to play a home game in the opening game if their performance is good, but because they use Doosan and Jamsil Stadium together, kt wiz, 6th place in 2019, will hold a home game in the opening game this year.
Children’s Day Games on May 5 will be held in Jamsil (LG-Doosan), Sajik (KIA-Lotte), Changwon (SK-NC), Gocheok (KT-Keeum), and Daejeon (Samsung-Hanwha) according to the biennial system. The game schedule announced this time consisted of 715 matches from April 3 to October 8. The 5 unscheduled matches are scheduled to be reorganized after October 9, along with matches that are delayed due to rain.
A KBO official said, “The 2021 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO regular season game schedule minimizes the distance traveled for each club, and considers the number of home games and monthly home games on weekends and holidays as equally as possible.”