ESPN will televise South Korea's Korea Baseball Organization games during the upcoming 2020 season, starting with the league's opening day on Tuesday.
ESPN will become the KBO's exclusive English-language home as part of an agreement with Eclat Media Group announced Monday, and it will televise six regular-season games per week.
"We're thrilled to become the exclusive English-language home to the KBO League and to showcase its compelling action and high-level of competition," said Burke Magnus, ESPN's executive vice president of programming. "We have a long-standing history of documenting the game of baseball and we're excited to deliver these live events to sports fans."
The season-opening game between the NC Dinos and Samsung Lions will air on ESPN at 1 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
Most other games will air on ESPN2 at 5:30 a.m. ET from Tuesdays through Fridays, 4 a.m. ET on Saturdays and 1 a.m. ET on Sundays.
"The KBO League is one of the greatest baseball leagues with world-class players and many exciting initiatives," KBO commissioner Un-Chan Chung said. "During this unprecedented and difficult time, I hope the KBO League can bring consolation to the communities and provide guidelines to the world of sports. I am pleased that the KBO League can be introduced globally and hope this can be an opportunity for the development of our league and the sport."
New Dodgers star Mookie Betts was among those to reach out on Twitter to welcome the return of KBO baseball games.
Welcome back, KBO. We're all watching!
— Mookie Betts (@mookiebetts) May 5, 2020
KBO가 돌아왔다. 우리 모두 시청하겠습니다!
Stay tuned for more to come!
앞으로도 많은 관심을 부탁 드립니다!
#KBO #Baseball #야구 #OpeningDay #개막전 #Hwaiting pic.twitter.com/HC4W0vEG2D
The agreement includes the postseason and the Korea Series best-of-seven championship. ESPN announcers will provide commentary in English from their home studios. Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez will do three games this week, including the opener. Jon Sciambi, Jessica Mendoza and Kyle Peterson will also call games.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.