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(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Eui-jin = The professional soccer K-League is striving to build services in virtual spaces such as fantasy leagues and metaverses as well as real grounds.
According to the Korea Professional Football Federation on the 23rd, as of the 22nd, 3,896 people are participating in the beta version of the fan participation type online event ‘K League Fantasy’, which was launched on the 19th.
K-League Fantasy is a participatory content that composes ‘my own lineup’ by collecting player cards and competes with other users by giving points to players’ actual game records.
It is a method to compete with other users by building a team with players with the most anticipated game indicators and then accumulating points corresponding to actual performance after each round.
Fantasy leagues are popular in various overseas sports leagues, such as the English Premier League (EPL), the German Bundesliga, and the American Professional Basketball Association (NBA), and the K-League has also joined this trend.
The federation said, “The purpose is to increase the sense of immersion in the K-League game because it is linked to the actual player’s performance, and to allow fans to enjoy the K-League without boundaries between online and offline.”
He added that currently about 4,000 users have purchased 22,258 player cards using the K-League application’Kick’ points.
The official service, not the beta version, is scheduled to be released in the second half of this year.
The federation plans to add ‘simulation league’ content in the second half of the year, in which players compete with other users through virtual games.
The federation, which launched the beta version of the blockchain-based K League membership application Kick in July last year, prepared the virtual space ‘K League Island’ through the global metaverse platform ‘The Sandbox’ on the 18th.
During the May festival held by The Sandbox, events were planned such as creating an online memorial hall for the Hall of Fame in ‘K League Island’ and displaying mascots and uniforms for each club this season.
An official from the federation said, “With the release of the fantasy league following Kick and K-League Island, we are able to provide an environment to enjoy the K-League not only offline but also in virtual space.”
