The cheers from the home crowd each time the South Korean men's soccer team scored during their 5-0 thrashing of Singapore in a recent World Cup qualifier were mainly due to the fact that a third of the tickets to the match The women were holding close to 2.
On that November day, a billboard-sized banner of star striker Son Heung-min was erected at Seoul Stadium by a women-only group. A banner for one of his teammates — “Cho Gu Sung Wins the Day'' — was signed by a club called “Women Supporting Cho Gu Sung's Pursuit of Happiness.''
The scene illustrates a fact that baffles experts in one of the world's most patriarchal societies. In the sports world, Korean women generally outnumber men in the stands.
According to 2022 estimates by the Korea Professional Sports Association, 55% of fans at professional sports events such as baseball, basketball, soccer, and volleyball are women. Similar estimates for major U.S. sports put the number for women at less than half. In the UK and Australia, that number will fall by more than a quarter.
Fans and sports experts attribute South Korea's high proportion of female fans to the feeling of safety at the country's sports venues. Some say it's influenced by a national fan culture, in some cases fueled by fervent worship of heartthrob stars.
“People think of the players not as athletes, but as celebrities,” said Im Soo-bin, 24, who attends games and fan meet-and-greets and watches baseball on TV every day during the season. “It's not much different from how K-pop fans follow their idols.”
In South Korea, where modern sports such as baseball and soccer were introduced in the late 19th century, professional leagues were a product of the vigorous economic growth that began in the 1960s, creating a large middle class. The league matured in parallel with the hosting of major international competitions such as the 1988 Summer Olympics and his 2002 Men's World Cup.
Women have long been part of a South Korean fan base that considers watching sports a national pastime and admires elite (and usually male) athletes who compete overseas. In the 1970s, the man of the moment was Cha Beom, who scored 98 goals for two clubs in Germany's top soccer league. His current sports idol is Son, a striker for Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League.
Female fans have also been participating in domestic tournaments for a similar period of time. In the 1990s, young women packed into college basketball stands, said Dae Hee Kwak, an associate professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. According to him, they called the “oppabudae,'' or the troops cheering for male stars, “oppa'' (a term of endearment used by Korean women for older men).
One explanation for the high proportion of female fans in South Korea is that Korean arenas are safe places to watch games. More venues are now offering family-friendly amenities, such as children's playrooms.
In such an atmosphere, expressions of fighting and other hooliganism are becoming increasingly rare, said Cho Yi-jin, a postdoctoral researcher at Seoul's Yonsei University.
“I smoke less, drink less, and curse less than I used to,” she says. “There's a friendlier atmosphere.”
Another factor, experts say, is the strong domestic fan culture that permeates the country's entertainment culture.
Over the past decade, global interest in Korean movies, dramas, and music has rapidly increased, leading to the formation of passionate fan bases centered around celebrities, whose success is seen as a sign of national pride. became.
Today, the same slang to describe the way superfans worship such idols, “dokujiru” or “fangirl,” is widely used in sports. Fan girls travel all over the country to watch games, send coffee trucks to practices as a show of support, and take photos of players with powerful zoom lenses from front row seats.
The team's marketing department noticed. We also have a wide selection of products for women, such as jerseys and headbands. Additionally, in the country's top soccer league, the team Daejeon Hana Citizens hosts an amateur “Queen's Cup” for female fans.
Shin Eun-ji, 43, who watches baseball games several times a week and takes copious notes on field strategy, once accompanied her favorite team, Seoul's Doosan Bears, to spring training in Japan. Sometimes. She also helped place a newspaper ad thanking the retiring pitcher.
Shin said following baseball players has a “lower barrier to entry” than celebrities in the entertainment industry for the simple reason that they are easier to physically approach.
In her experience, only women bring cameras to games. “Men don't do that, except for a few people who want to take pictures of cheerleaders,” she added.
Although women are emerging as sports fans in South Korea, gender equality has not yet been achieved on the court, stadium or coaching room. Sports experts say that's partly because South Korea doesn't have anti-discrimination laws, much less Title IX, the landmark 1972 U.S. law that greatly expanded women's access to sports. He says this is because there is no law.
For many female fans, seeing other women in the stands provides a sense of belonging and togetherness, said Nari Singh, an assistant professor of sport management at the University of Michigan and a freestyle snowboarder.
Some female fans said that while male players were their entry point into the sport, they eventually came to have a deeper appreciation for the game itself.
Celine Lim, 39, started watching Korean pitcher Kim Byung-hyun play for the Boston Red Sox when she was living in the United States, partly because she was attracted to his “bad boy” personality. He said it was a contributing factor. Even after he retired, she continued to watch almost every game of his Korean team, Kiwoom Heroes.
Han Na-kyung (26) said that her interest in soccer deepened after watching Sung Sung play for Tottenham Hotspur. Now, she is also a busy college student, and she makes time to follow each player on the team. She said she has several friends whose fandoms have gone in a similar direction.
“Gradually, they became more loyal to the sport than anyone else,” she says.
