KBO Preview & Betting Guide

2024 KBO League Preview

One thing which is apparent with the playoffs is the team who wins the league and in doing so gets an automatic spot in the final, really does have a big advantage and more than often, makes that advantage count.

Since 2002 the winner of the KBO Series has gone to the team that won the league in 20 of the 22 finals.

Korea KBO 2024 26 Apr @ 16:33 - Win Tournament
Kia Tigers	4.50
LG Twins	5.00
NC Dinos	6.00
SSG Landers	6.00
Hanwha Eagles	9.00

Having a break from the end of the regular season to the final seems to pay dividends, also the team they face could have played twelve additional games to get to the final depending on when they entered the playoffs.

That is certainly an important factor to consider when looking to back who will win the KBO Series!

Who will win the 2024 KBO Series? Head over to the baseball predictions to see which teams the OLBG baseball tipsters are picking daily and which teams they think will advance to the playoffs.

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Most Successful KBO Franchises

The Samsung Lions lead the way for series appearances with a total of seventeen, they have won seven of those with ten defeats and they did also win in 1985 when the league decided the winners so, in fact, have eight wins in total.

The Doosan Bears made their fifteenth appearance in 2021, they had made the last seven KBO series after 2021 but that came to an end in 2022 when they didn't even make the post-season and overall have won six of those with nine defeats.

Kia Tigers have by far the most impressive record in the series, they have made it into a total of eleven series and they remain undefeated in the series, they have won all eleven of those!

Past KBO Series Winners

Here are the last ten winners of the KBO Series.

2023 KBO Playoffs Recap

Here is how the 2023 playoffs were won.

What is the KBO Baseball League?

The KBO League otherwise known as the Korea Baseball Championship is the top-tier league in South Korean baseball which was established in 1982, originally with six teams, it has expanded to a ten-team league. The league is very popular around the world with baseball fans with the majority of those ranking this league in the three or five leagues in the world behind only the MLB and Japanese NPB.

South Korean fans love their baseball and the league is the most popular league in the country, figures from the 2017 season showed that throughout the season, a total of 8.4 million spectators attended the games, with 720 games during the season, that was on average an attendance of 11,666 which just goes to show how much the South Koreans love their baseball!

The fans play a big part in the game, their enjoyment of the match is second to none, they sing, dance and do everything in their power to enjoy the game no matter the score! The following video is a great watch for a quick introduction to the league.

The KBO League Structure

The KBO League has games every day except for Monday during the regular season, the ten teams play each of the other teams sixteen times which results in a total of one-hundred and forty-four games being played by each team, this has been the case since 2015, the season when the league was expanded to ten teams with the addition of KT Wiz.

There are no divisions or conferences like the MLB, this is simply because there are only ten teams compared to the thirty in the MLB and it's a simple qualification system in place to get into the playoffs. Come to the end of the season, the team finishing top of the league get an automatic spot in the final of the playoffs, the team in second goes straight into the semi-finals, the team in third goes into the quarter-finals whilst the teams in fourth and fifth compete in the first playoff game for a spot in the quarter-final that means, the better your regular season goes, the better reward you get in the playoffs.

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Unlike the MLB, draws are an acceptable result in the KBO, if there is a draw in the playoffs then the match is replayed, this means that whilst the series is best 5 & 7, there could be more matches than those numbers. For playoff games, once the fifteenth innings have been completed and there is still no winner, the game will then be declared a tie, during the regular season, there is a limit of twelve innings before being declared a tie.

• KBO Wild Card Game
  • 4th vs 5th (Best of 3 - 4th starts with a 1-0 lead and wins with a tie)
• KBO Quarter-Finals
  • 3rd vs Wild Card Winner (Best of 5)
• KBO Semi-Finals
  • 2nd vs Semi-Final Winner (Best of 5)
• KBO Korean Series
  • 1st vs Semi-Final winner (Best of 7)

An introduction to the KBO League Teams

One thing which you will notice with the KBO teams is that most of them have a company name within their team names all bar one of the teams are named after their owners, that one exception is the Kiwoom Heroes who sold their naming right but as you can see, the likes of KIA, LG and Samsung all own teams in the KBO league. The six founding teams of the league were the Haitai Tigers (KIA Tigers), Lotte Giants, MBC Chungyong (LG Twins), OB Bears (Doosan Bears), Sammi Superstars (Ceased in 2008) and the Samsung Lions.

Remember to head over to the Baseball Best Handicappers page where those who have shown a profit with their baseball predictions will be highlighted, many of them will follow certain KBO teams and give you an expert opinion on each of the games.

Doosan Bears

• City: Seoul
• Stadium: Jamsil Baseball Stadium
• Capacity: 25,000
• Founded: 1982

Hanwha Eagles

• City: Daejeon
• Stadium: Daejeon Hanbat Baseball Stadium
• Capacity: 13,000
• Founded: 1985 (Joined 1986)

KIA Tigers

• City: Gwangju
• Stadium: Gwangju-Kia Champions Field
• Capacity: 27,000
• Founded: 1982

Kiwoom Heroes

• City: Seoul
• Stadium: Gocheok Sky Dome
• Capacity: 16,744
• Founded: 2008

KT Wiz

• City: Suwon, Gyeonggi
• Stadium: Suwon Baseball Stadium
• Capacity: 20,000
• Founded: 2013 (Joined 2015)

LG Twins

• City: Seoul
• Stadium: Jamsil Baseball Stadium
• Capacity: 25,000
• Founded: 1982

Lotte Giants

• City: Busan
• Stadium: Busan Sajik Baseball Stadium
• Capacity: 24,500
• Founded: 1975 (Joined 1982)

NC Dinos

• City: Changwon, Gyeongnam
• Stadium: Changwon NC Park
• Capacity: 22,112
• Founded: 2011 (Joined 2013)

Samsung Lions

• City: Daegu
• Stadium: Daegu Samsung Lions Park
• Capacity: 24,000
• Founded: 1982

SGG Landers

• City: Incheon
• Stadium: Incheon SSG Landers Field
• Capacity: 23,000
• Founded: 2000