Will we see the first Seoul opener in major league history in March 2024?
Dennis Lin, a reporter in charge of the San Diego Padres at ‘The Athletic’, quoted a source on the 10th (Korean time) and said, ‘It may take several months to officially announce the major league’s opening match in Seoul.’
Previously,안전놀이터 local media including this media reported that the major leagues are promoting the season opener between the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Gocheok Dome in Seoul in March 2024.
In this regard, Lin noted that the official announcement from the Secretariat may be delayed due to ‘action plan issues’.
A lot of preparation is required for the major league’s overseas opening game. There are not one or two issues to be concerned about, such as moving and lodging. It seems that the process of determining these details ran into difficulties.
He added, ‘If the Seoul series is not finalized, Japan can be a potential alternative’.
This is also specified in the 2022-2026 Major League Labor-Management Agreement, which was released on the official website of the Major League Players Union on the same day.
Major League labor and management, which specified an Asian opener in 2024 in their overseas game plans, specified an additional sentence: “A game plan marked Asia may be played in Japan, but not Australia.” In some cases, it is stated that it may be held in Japan.
Major League Baseball even officially announced a visit to Seoul by Major League All-Stars in November of last year, but the visit was canceled due to a problem in the implementation stage of the plan.
At the time, Commissioner Rob Manfred responded to a reporter’s question asking for an explanation, saying, “We had an agreement with the promoter (about holding the Korean game), but the promoter couldn’t handle the job properly. As a result, we were put in a situation where we couldn’t show our fans in Korea the level of events we wanted to show.”