▲Photo courtesy of MBC
In 2021, the entertainment industry was popular, with sports entertainment featuring various sports such as golf, soccer, basketball, and badminton. In the new year of 2022, sports entertainment is expected to be stronger. As the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are ahead, it is analyzed that broadcasters are focusing more on sports entertainment.
As a special feature for the Lunar New Year holiday, MBC aired ‘Curling Queens’ with the subject of curling from the 31st of last month to the 1st of this month. Curling quickly emerged as a popular winter sport thanks to the performance of ‘Team Kim’ at the ‘2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics’. Kim Eun-jung, the captain of ‘Team Kim’, the main character of the curling syndrome, said about ‘Curling Queens’, “I think it is an honor as a curling player to have a special broadcast exclusively for curling.” In the program, female stars representing each field, such as actors, professional golfers, announcers, dancers, and national teams, formed each team and challenged curling. According to Nielsen Korea’s tally on the 2nd, ‘Curling Queens’ recorded 2.9% viewer ratings for the first episode and 2.1% for the second episode.
tvN introduced the entertainment program ‘All Table Tennis!’ on the 31st of last month, in which hidden table tennis experts in the entertainment industry are reborn as the best table tennis team in the entertainment industry through special training and challenges. Kang Ho-dong and Eun Ji-won each formed a team and auditioned to recruit team members. In the table tennis audition, former baseball player Yoon Seok-min, WINNER’s Kang Seung-yoon, model Joo Woo-jae, and actor Park Eun-seok appeared. The first episode recorded a rating of 2.4%, signaling a good start.
JTBC’s ‘Legendary Sports Festival’, which aired from the 11th of last month, features former athletes. It is a sports competition program in which players representing each sport form a team and wage the pride of the sport. A total of eight teams, including basketball, baseball, rugby, and fighting, will appear and compete in various sports, including futsal.
▲Photo courtesy of each agency
Entertainment shows that deal with basketball are also coming to viewers soon. On the 15th, JTBC will air the ‘Witch Fitness Basketball Club’, which contains the life sports challenges of the ‘athletic sisters’. The producers of ‘We must unite to shoot’ and ‘We must unite to shoot’, both of which have driven the sports craze in the entertainment world, participated. Celebrities who are far from playing basketball form a basketball team and challenge for victory. The main players are Song Eun-i and Ko Soo-hee. Byul, Park Seon-young, Jang Do-yeon, Honey J, Ok Ja-yeon, and Im Soo-hyang will participate.
MBN will air its first show, ‘National University is National University’ next month, in which retired sports players go through training again and then compete against the active national sports team. In the first episode, ‘Legend of Table Tennis’ Hyun Jung-Hwa appears, and it illuminates the process of going through a tough game for 60 days. Hyeon Jung-hwa, who won 75 gold medals during active service, is paying attention to whether she can show skills that surpass her heyday.
An entertainment show observing the lives of two-year-old families who look like sports stars and show talent in sports is also being aired. Channel A is broadcasting a variety show ‘Can’t Cheat Super DNA Blood’, which is a mixture of the blood, sweat, and tears of the children of former athletes such as former soccer player Lee Dong-guk and fencing player Nam Hyun-hee. Lee Dong-guk’s daughter Jae-ah, who is considered a ‘prospective tennis player’, baseball player Kim Byung-hyun, ‘tennis prodigy’ daughter Minju-yang, Nam Hyeon-hee and daughter Gong Hai, who is called a ‘fencing star’, will appear.
KBS also hosted an observational entertainment show ‘Operation Time Between Us’, which contains the joys and sorrows of a sports family that has been passed down through generations such as ‘God of the Board’ Yeo Hong-cheol and his daughter, Yeo Seo-jeong, a national gymnast; are broadcasting
A program that combines sports and reality romance, which has recently become a popular entertainment trend, was also released. The wave ‘Hole in Love’, released on the 31st of last month, marked the beginning of a five-day love line with six men and women meeting for the first time through the common medium of golf. As golf has become a popular sport due to COVID-19, a dating reality program based on golf is catching the eyes of the 2030 generation.
▲Source=’Goal Girl’ broadcast screen
The popularity of sports entertainment has established itself as a trend thanks to the box office success of SBS’ ‘Girls Hitting Goals’. ‘Goal Girl’, in which famous female entertainers form a team and play soccer without sparing themselves, continued until season 2 due to the unexpected popularity of season 1. There are many opinions that it is impressive to see the female performers who are improving their skills through constant practice while doing their best. ‘Goal Girl’, which recently stopped broadcasting once and replaced the director due to manipulation of the scoring sequence of the game, maintained its 8% viewer rating in the recently resumed broadcast, proving its popularity.
It is analyzed that the reason sports entertainment is gaining popularity like this is that the interest in sports entertainment has increased due to the difficulty of watching games due to the prolonged novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). In addition, sports entertainment that is more drama-like than drama seems to reflect the trend of viewers who prefer reality. As the number of events covered by sports entertainment expands more and more, public interest in unpopular sports is increasing. Starting with the Beijing Winter Olympics in February, the Asian Games in Hangzhou in September, and the World Cup in Qatar in November, the heyday of sports entertainment is expected to continue.
