The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) reached a milestone, as regular season attendance reached 2 million for the first time. More than 5,000 fans attended the game between the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions and the Fubon Guardians in Tainan on Friday.
Taiwan’s professional baseball league had sold 1,998,794 tickets for the regular-season games before Friday. The record was officially broken that night when 5,322 fans attended the game at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium, where the Lions won 4-3.
The Guardians took a 2-1 lead when slugger Yu Chang (張育成) smashed a two-run homer in the top of the fifth inning, marking his sixth home run since joining the team during the mid-season draft last month.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
However, the Lions secured a walk-off win in the 10th inning when pinch hitter Pan Chieh-kai (潘傑楷) was hit by a pitch from Chiang Kuo-hao (江國豪) with the bases loaded.
The game was the 15th extra-inning contest of the season.
As of Friday, the CPBL has played 269 games, attracting 2,016,289 spectators, with an average attendance of 7,495 per game — up 24.9 percent from 6,000 per game last year. The total and the average attendance are new records in the league’s 35-year history.
The previous total attendance record was set last year, which saw 1,800,130 spectators over 300 games. Meanwhile, the 1992 season held the record for highest average attendance, with 6,878 fans per game.
The league’s popularity has continued from the pre-season, during which turnout nearly tripled to 93,074 across 30 games — one more game than last year.
The significant increase in attendance might partly be attributable to the opening of the Taipei Dome this year, the country’s first indoor baseball venue, with more than 40,000 seats and air conditioning.
The 30 games held at the Taipei Dome have drawn a total of 580,390 spectators, averaging 19,346 per game. The highest attendance at the dome came on Aug. 3, when 34,506 tickets were sold for a game between the CTBC Brothers and the Guardians.
With the addition of the TSG Hawks, the CPBL expanded to six teams this year and is holding 360 regular-season games, including eight more scheduled at the Taipei Dome for next month.
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