Baseball Revolution’ ABS and the Era of Pay-Per-Viewing… Doubleheader Emerges as a Variable
Fairness secured by introducing ABS for the first time in the world in professional leagues, era of paid viewing begins with contract with mobile platform ‘Tving’, joys and sorrows of each team mixed with weekend double headers
If we were to pick three issues that heated up the first half of the 2024 professional baseball season, they would be the introduction of the Automatic Pitch Judgment System (ABS), the start of the pay-per-view era, and the implementation of doubleheaders.
The ABS system, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) that receives data rather than human umpires to determine strikes and balls, was evaluated to have made a successful soft landing in the first half.
Also, paid viewing, which had strong psychological resistance from baseball fans, is gradually gaining ground. 무료슬롯사이트
While there is agreement that doubleheaders with two games played in a day are a “necessary evil” on the field, there is a growing sense of discontent due to the advantages and disadvantages for each team.
The KBO League has lost the wasteful debate on ‘Why is this a strike?’
The event that changed the appearance of the KBO League the most this year was the introduction of ABS.
ABS, which was first introduced in the history of professional leagues around the world, has received high satisfaction so far despite numerous concerns.
Above all, baseball fans say that the biggest stress when watching baseball has disappeared, as they are free from the controversy over judgement discrimination, such as “Why are they not giving a call to our team?”
In fact, according to the results of a survey conducted by the KBO office, around 90% of fans are satisfied with the introduction of ABS.
The introduction of new technology has resolved human conflicts and even maximized efficiency.
Automatic Pitch Judgment System, which tracks the pitch location value through a tracking system and then determines strikes and balls, is nothing short of a baseball revolution.
Fierce protests about umpires’ ball calls, which were a common reason for players and managers to be ejected, are no longer seen, and the game progresses more quickly.
Now that we have reached an era where AI can judge strikes ‘without error’, the next step is to redefine the concept of a ‘real strike’.
Since ABS calls a strike even if the strike zone passes by just 0.1cm, the mechanical application of the concept of a strike, ‘high zone corners’, confused players throughout the first half of the season.
Conceptually, a strike is considered a strike even if it only grazes the corners of the zone, but batters are pointing out that the very premise that a ‘pitch that the batter can attack’ should be a strike is being shaken.
With the introduction of ABS, a fair strike zone has been introduced for everyone, so discussions about ‘real strikes’ are expected to begin after this season ends.
A KBO office official stated, “There is talk about a high zone, but it is impossible to change it during the season.
We will go through the process of reviewing it ourselves after the season ends.”
The era of OTT viewing is in full swing… Social media views explode as a side effect
KBO’s decision to begin broadcasting both wired and wireless games through the video streaming (OTT) service TVING provided by CJ ENM starting this season is evaluated as a revolution that changed the landscape of the baseball industry itself.
Not only did the largest-ever 3-year, 135 billion won contract greatly help the team’s finances, but some say that freely accessing game videos on social media has laid the foundation for this year’s explosion in baseball popularity, opening the era of 10 million spectators for the first time ever.