Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) President Heo Koo-yeon met with Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Commissioner Sakakibara Sadayuki at the Tokyo Dome, home of the 2023 Asian Professional Baseball Championship (APBC) final against Japan, to discuss the development of baseball in Asia, the KBO said on Tuesday.

The two commissioners, who met for the second time since the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in March, once again agreed on the need for active baseball cooperation, the KBO said. Although the Korea-Japan exchange game, which Heo has been pushing for since shortly after taking office, was not able to be executed as per the Japanese national team’s pre-scheduled schedule, they agreed to discuss the possibility of organizing it at a later date.굿모닝토토

“I think the Korea-Japan game is an important factor in the baseball boom every week, and let’s try to develop baseball in Asia through various international tournaments and games involving both countries,” Heo said.

In response, Commissioner Sakakibara said, “Although the number of spectators in Japanese professional baseball has increased, the number of amateur baseball players has decreased, and there is a sense of crisis about the decline in the popularity of baseball,” adding, “Let’s review various ideas together and work together to revive baseball.”

The two commissioners also agreed to actively promote meetings between their organizations, which have been stalled due to COVID-19, and shared the idea of holding a meeting of the Korean, U.S., and Japanese commissioners before the opening game of Major League Baseball (MLB) in Korea next March.