As Byung Ho Park, the Minnesota Twins' new power slugger, mingled with reporters following his introductory news conference last Wednesday, Dave St. Peter, the team's president, stood a few feet away and said the Twins jersey looked good on its first South Korean player.
"I think we're going to be seeing a lot of those next summer," St. Peter said. Park's arrival is a potential turning point, not just for the Twins' on-field performance but also its development as a business and an entertainment brand.
The Twins were the most profitable sports organization in Minnesota last year, according to an estimate by Forbes magazine. But like most pro sports teams, its fan and revenue base is confined to a geographic area.
This past season, two teams with similar regional appeal, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Texas Rangers, saw interest and exposure expand after the arrival and success of Korean players. The gains happened not just in South Korea but among Koreans in the U.S. and Asian-Americans who connect to Korea because of its pop music, TV dramas and movies.
Both teams saw higher ticket and merchandise sales as they traveled around the league. And both teams had nearly all their games broadcast on cable in South Korea, a country of 50 million whose national team, which included Park, won the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics.
"I'm excited for Minnesota. They have a pretty special thing coming," said Martin Kim, a Los Angeles Dodgers business development executive who spent a year as translator for pitcher Hyun Jin Ryu, also from South Korea. "Park is a superstar in Korea."
Park, 29, is a two-time MVP and three-time Golden Glove winner in the Korean Baseball Organization. He played first base for his most recent team in Korea, but the Twins plan to use him as a designated hitter. He hit more than 50 home runs in each of the last two seasons but will face tougher pitching in the U.S. The Twins paid a $12.85 million fee to his Korean team and signed him to a four-year, $12 million contract.
"We signed Byung Ho Park because he's a very good baseball player. We think he has a chance to help us win a lot of games. That's reason numbers one, two, three and four," St. Peter said.