Head of International Business Development Min Joo Kim explores the league's three-part strategy for boosting its appeal, particularly for the younger generation
What does it take to grow a sports league in the age of social media, cultural crossover, and competition for attention? Min Joo Kim, head of international business development, Korea Professional Football League (K League), laid out the K League's three-pronged plan during a presentation at Sportel Asia last month.
For the younger generation, sports are no longer experienced as just viewing the matches on the pitch, she explained. Today, it is very much experienced through the multiple moments or different types of products and the different angles and different forms. And that is not just during the matches but also before, after, and even outside of the matches.
Sports are in a global attention marketplace, she continued, where the fans are consistently choosing between different types and forms of content and entertainment, and even cultural elements. For leagues and, of course, for the K League, this means that we can no longer rely only on just delivering and organizing the matches to remain and competitive in the global market.
To address these changes, in 2019, the K League made the bold decision to take full ownership of its media business. Previously, third-party broadcasters controlled everything from production to the league's narrative. Bringing production in-house, the K League gained the autonomy and flexibility needed to communicate directly with its fans.
K League's Min Joo Kim opined that engagement with non-sports brands is crucial in the digital age for sports leagues, teams, and rightsholders. Since then, K League has invested significantly to support this transformation, said Kim. And with this greater control over the business, production, and media assets, we've gained so much more flexibility and autonomy, not only in terms of the media for the B2B side but also in how we can actually develop contents and again communicate more directly with the fans.
As a result, she added, the K League media strategy has grown gradually more from a match-centric broadcast model toward more of a continuous storytelling model with a focus on the fans or behind-the-scenes content, where the league can engage with the fan through multiple areas of the content just beyond the 90 minutes when matches are happening on the pitch.
At the same time, she said, the league has continued to invest in broadcast and production technologies as well. We now have a full in-house production team as well as our own designated channel for the K League. And we have advanced production tools and systems, such as cinematic cameras, Spidercam, AI-based remote control, and even 4K production.
Those advances, she noted, gives the K League the ability to control how stories can be captured, how matches are presented in the market, and how content can be repurposed across different platforms. The goal for us is not only about improving the quality of the broadcast itself but to enhance the league's ability to develop more of the compelling content that really drives fan engagement, media value, and also the long-term commercial sustainability.
The league, she explained, recognized that younger generations do not exclusively consume football through a linear 90-minute broadcast. Instead, they engage with multiple moments - behind-the-scenes footage, fan-centric stories, highlights - across various digital platforms. This shift from match-centric to storytelling-centric allows the league to engage fans before, during, and long after the final whistle.
Although the domestic Korean market remains the heart of the league, the K League is also looking abroad with a sense of urgency. Kim pointed out a stark reality: South Korea is currently facing a population collapse. The demographic shift makes it inevitable that the league must find consumers in international markets to ensure long-term commercial sustainability.
Being in the international market allows us to think beyond and understand how the other global market and sports industries are formed, she added. It also increases the chances of creating more opportunities and foundations to increase the value of not just the league but also the players.
Those efforts include not just a simple content localization but, more likely, a localized and customized distribution with English commentary, graphics, and expanded commercial strategies. Helping in those efforts is K League TV, a direct-to-consumer OTT platform that provides free streaming in countries where media rights haven't been sold. This platform provides the league with invaluable data on fan behavior and regional engagement.
It's not only about delivering our messages and voices directly to the fans, Kim said, but it really provides valuable insight into fan behavior, including how audiences consume live broadcast versus on-demand content, which markets have stronger engagement, and how different types of content performs differently across countries. These insights really help us design more of the targeted strategies and determine where to focus the investment on the future and build a more scalable business model.
It also includes physical events because the league believes in the power of being in the market. Last year, the K League hosted its first-ever overseas watch party in Japan, allowing it to observe fan reactions directly and build emotional connections that a digital-only strategy cannot replicate.
Along with physical events the K League is also building out its connection with other intellectual properties like K Pop music and brands like Disney and Sanrio.
We have launched a lot of collaborated merchandise and even introduced a new format, such as a
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Head of International Business Development Min Joo Kim explores the league's three-part strategy for boosting its appeal, particularly for the younger generation
