This is an article Vince Nance and I wrote in 2009 after attending K-1 event in Seoul
K-1 in Seoul Through American Eyes
Danny Kessler and Vincent Nance
I recently attended the K1 Grand Prix event held at the world famous Olympic
Park facility in downtown Seoul, South Korea. Kicking off at 3:00 on a Saturday
afternoon, it was 6 hours of pure gladiatorial entertainment. The event opened
with 2 fights followed by 2 "special" fights and then kept the action going with
a stacked card of 9 MMA fights. Throughout the evening, spectators saw 13
world class bouts for a price that ranged from $28(nosebleed) to $950(VIP)
*currency conversion rate from Won to USD. For the very sober price of 55,000
- 99,000 Won (roughly $42 - $85 USD) there were respectable mid-range seats
available. No one can argue that the entertainment value was stellar, and the
price left fans guilt free to visit an array of concession stands for traditional
Korean food as well as a GS mart (one of Korea's largest convenience store
chains) where fans crowded in to help turn a heavy profit on beer, soft drinks,
and chips alone. Despite having a monopoly on the ability to sell beverages at
the event, beers were priced around 2$, and were extremely popular in a country
where TaeKwonDo is their national sport and intoxication is a national pastime.
By the end of the evening fight fans were red faced and grinning as they made
their ways to the exits with their arms around each other, still shouting about the
experience with voices hoarse from a night of incessant screaming.
Between fights, I spent some time evaluating my surroundings and was surprised
to find about 20% of the seats empty. As a non-resident in Korea on a work
visa, I immediately thought of the battle I had fight in order to purchase tickets
in advance, and began wondering how many foreigners who would otherwise
have attended the event might have had similar experiences and made other
plans for their weekends. Korea only allowed tickets to be advance purchased
by its citizens, thereby literally barring hundreds of thousands of foreigners from
utilizing the preferred method of obtaining tickets to the K-1 Event in their jewel
city. There are currently over 1.1 million expatriates living in Korea, comprised
mostly of American military personnel, English teachers, University professors,
and laborers throughout the country who reside here both on work visas and as
visitors. One can certainly speculate that hundreds of thousands of potential
attendees could have more than filled in any gaps in seating had they had the
ability to do so.
Because of its homogeneous ethnic and cultural climate, Korea tends to
be racially exclusive without doing any extra work. Putting aside the fact
that "outsiders" are largely considered to be second class citizens, K-1 can't be
fond of having to see empty seats in the arena because of a country's racially
biased closed mindedness. In order to buy tickets online (rather than attempting
to pay cash at the front door and hoping the event wasn't sold out) I actually
had to have a Korean friend act as a surrogate to buy my tickets, as "foreigners"
literally had NO way to make such a purchase. Additionally, my Korean
accomplice - in what felt a lot like a crime - actually had to physically give me his
license to take to Seoul in order for me to be allowed to pickup my tickets. It can
safely be assumed that any non-Korean citizens on the fence about attending this
event landed squarely on the side of "not wanting to jump through 10 flaming
hoops of identity theft".
Leaving money on the table:
I am not certain about the rules governing the way that Olympic Park Stadium
was setup, but I saw no tables/booths for martial arts gyms in Korea cross
promoting their gyms. This is, of course in stark contrast to MMA in the U.S.,
where it's standard procedure to have a multitude of booths promoting MMA
gyms, MMA magazines, MMA websites, and merchandising their brands for a
share of the profits... In Korea none of this was present. I wonder if it was
impossible for Korean businesses to get permission to advertise at this venue,
or if there is a cultural taboo against mixing martial arts and sales, but there
were many fans in attendance that would surely have been receptive to this and
whatever the case, revenue was certainly lost for these organizations. In fact,
throughout the entire event no K-1 merchandise was for sale, which shocked me.
I was actively trying to buy K-1 tee-shirts or any of their other apparel such as
gloves, wraps, bags, or gifts as souvenirs to take home for my family. I am sure
many fans would have loved to have purchased K1 branded apparel but there
were no such items for sale within the venue itself. It was only after the event
was over, when fans were practically stampeding out of the stadium to beat the
crowd, that there were K1 T-shirts available for purchase. For fans who weren't
too rushed, distracted, drunk, excited, or exhausted, these shirts cost a mere
10,000 won (around $8.50 USD), and I happily purchased 3 of them.
I definitely give the event coordinators high marks on the production quality
of the show. The overall organization, camera work, special effects, lighting,
acoustics, fighter match ups, and seamless transitions were all world class. The
consistent energy in the crowd was evidence of a team of coordinators who
clearly knew how to build and execute a venue that is worth the experience in
every way. However, despite the quality of the experience for attendees, I've
come to the conclusion that K1 is leaving money on the table. ALOT of money.
Not only could they have been raking in cash from their most devoted fanbase
in the form of merchandise, they would easily have seen a 20% boost in ticket,
concession, and merchandise sales by providing non-Korean citizens with a
reasonable way to guarantee entry through the advance purchase of tickets.
Korea may have successfully held a K-1 event, but they also succeeded in
demonstrating room for improvement.
