S. Korean baseball attendance on record-setting pace

SEOUL, April 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top professional baseball league is enjoying an early bonanza at the gates and is well on its way to break the single-season attendance record, the league office said Monday. The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) said after 74 games played through Sunday, 931,019 fans have gone to the ballparks, up 18 percent after the same number of games last season. The KBO has drawn an average 12,581 fans per game so far, up almost 2,000 a game from a year ago. The eight KBO teams will each play 133 games this year, and they've played 18 to 19 games so far through Sunday. There are no games scheduled on Mondays in the KBO. The KBO said at this rate, the total attendance figure could end up around 6.7 million this year, which would break the all-time record of 5.92 million set in 2010. Before the season, the league set out to attract 6.63 million fans. A league-wide parity has contributed to the early success. The Kia Tigers and LG Twins, both non-playoff clubs in 2010, are playing .500 baseball. The Twins, an also-ran over the past 10 years, have sold out four of their 11 home games at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul. All eight clubs have played to a packed stadium at least once. The Lotte Giants, based in Busan, have struggled out of the gate with just five wins in their first 18 games. But that hasn't stopped the Giants from averaging 22,520 fans per game, the highest figure in the KBO. The Giants are the only team to have drawn at least 1 million home fans in each of the past three seasons. A fourth straight season would set a league record.