Every time the South Korean men’s soccer team scored against Singapore during a recent 5-0 rout in a World Cup qualifying match, the roar from the home crowd came largely from the women, who scored almost two-thirds of the tickets for the game.
On that November day, at Seoul Stadium, a women-only group had made a billboard-sized banner for star forward Son Heung-min. A banner for one of his teammates – “Cho Gue-sung wins the day” – had been signed by a club called “Women Supporting Cho Gue-sung’s Pursuit of Happiness.”
The scene illustrated a fact that has baffled experts in one of the world’s most patriarchal societies: In sports, South Korean women generally outnumber men in the stands.
Women here account for 55 percent of fans at professional sporting events, including baseball, basketball, soccer and volleyball, according to a 2022 estimate from the Korea Professional Sports Association. Similar estimates for major sports in the United States put the figure at less than half for women. In Britain and Australia, that figure drops to a quarter or less.
Sports fans and experts attribute the high rate of female fans in South Korea in part to the feeling of security at the country’s sports venues. Others say it is influenced by a national fan culture driven by intense adoration of stars, who in some cases are heartthrobs.
“People don’t think of players as athletes, but as celebrities,” said Yim Subin, 24, who attends games and fan gatherings and watches baseball on television every day of the season. “It’s not much different from the way 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 rapid economic growth that began in the 1960s and created a large middle class. The leagues matured alongside the hosting of major international competitions, including the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 2002 men’s World Cup.
Women have long been part of a South Korean fan base that considers following sports a national pastime, glorifying elite (and usually male) athletes who compete abroad. In the 1970s, the man of the hour was Cha Bum-kun, who scored 98 goals for two clubs in Germany’s top soccer league. Now the sporting idol is Son, forward for Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premier League.
Female fans have been present in national competitions for so long. In the 1990s, young women filled the college basketball stands, said Dae Hee Kwak, an associate professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. She said they were known as “oppa budae,” or cheering armies for male stars they called “oppa,” a term of endearment Korean women use for an older man.
One explanation for the high rate of female fandom in South Korea is that their stadiums are safe places to watch a game. An increasing number of venues now offer family-friendly amenities, including children’s playrooms.
In that atmosphere, fights and other expressions of vandalism are increasingly rare, said Cho Yijin, a postdoctoral researcher at Yonsei University in Seoul.
“There is smoking, drinking and swearing less than before,” he said. “There’s a friendlier atmosphere.”
Another factor, experts say, is the intense domestic fan culture that permeates the country’s entertainment culture.
The meteoric rise of global interest in South Korean films, dramas and music over the past decade has created a passionate fan base around celebrities whose success is seen as a sign of national pride.
Now, the same slang that describes how superfans worship such idols (“deok-jil” or “fangirling”) is widely used for sports. Fans travel across the country to games, send coffee trucks to practices as a show of support, and take photos of players with powerful zoom lenses from front-row seats.
Team marketing departments have noticed. There’s no shortage of products for women, including sweaters and headbands. And in the country’s most important soccer league, the Daejeon Hana Citizen team organizes an amateur “Queen’s Cup” for its fans.
Eunji Shin, 43, who attends several baseball games a week and takes copious notes on field strategy, once followed her favorite team, the Seoul Doosan Bears, to their spring training camp in Japan. He also helped place a newspaper ad with a thank-you note for a retiring pitcher.
Shin said there was a “lower barrier to entry” to following baseball players than entertainment celebrities for one simple reason: It’s easier to get physically close to them.
In his experience, the only people who bring cameras to games are women. “Men don’t do that,” she added, “except the few who want to photograph cheerleaders.”
The rise of women as sports fans in South Korea has not led to gender parity on the courts or fields, nor in the training rooms. Sports experts say this is partly because South Korea has no anti-discrimination law, much less legislation like Title IX, the landmark 1972 U.S. law that significantly expanded girls’ access to sports. sports.
For many fans, seeing other women in the stands gives them a sense of belonging and solidarity, said NaRi Shin, an assistant professor of sports management at the University of Michigan and a freestyle snowboarder.
Several female fans said that while male players had been their gateway to sports, over time they developed a deeper appreciation for the game itself.
Celine Lim, 39, said she started watching Kim Byung-hyun, a Korean pitcher, play for the Boston Red Sox when she lived in the United States, partly because she was attracted to his “bad boy” personality. She continued to watch his Korean team, the Kiwoom Heroes, play almost every game even after he retired.
Han Nagyeong, 26, said his interest in football deepened while watching Son play for Tottenham Hotspur. Now, even as a busy college student, she takes the time to follow each player on the team. She said that she has several friends whose fandom has taken a similar turn.
“Gradually, they became more sincere about the sport itself than anyone else,” he said.