Last year, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) League opened an era with 10 million spectators and recorded the highest average salary ever.
KBO announced on the 5th the salary status of registered players in the 2025 KBO League. The average salary of 519 players registered with KBO this year (excluding rookies and foreign players) is calculated to be 160.71 million won, which is an increase of 3.7% compared to last year's average of 154.95 million won, making it the highest average salary in KBO League history.
▲ KIA's Kim Do-young sees a 400% salary increase, ranking first in salary increase rate for the 2025 season.
KIA's Kim Do-young, who won the 2024 KBO regular season MVP, saw his salary rise from 100 million won to 500 million won, registering a 400% increase compared to last year, achieving the highest increase rate for 2025. He also broke the previous record for the highest fourth-year salary of 390 million won held by Lee Jung-hoo (Kiwoom) in 2020.
Kim Do-young's 400% increase rate ranks him joint 11th in KBO League history for salary increase rates. Excluding multi-year contracts for free agents and non-free agents, it is the third-highest increase rate following Hae-jun Ryu's (SK) 455.6% (27 million won to 150 million won) in 2020 and Koh Young's (KT) 418.5% (27 million won to 140 million won) in 2021, and is the same as the increase rate recorded by Ryu Hyun-jin (Hanwha) in 2007 (20 million won to 100 million won).
▲ Doosan's Kim Taek-yeon ties for the highest salary in the second year, while KIA's Choi Hyung-woo breaks the record for the highest salary in the 24th year.
Doosan's Kim Taek-yeon, who won the 2024 KBO Rookie of the Year, has a salary of 140 million won, tying with Koh Young who recorded the highest second-year salary in 2021. At that time, Koh Young also won the KBO Rookie of the Year award the previous season in 2020.
KT's Kang Baek-ho recorded a salary of 700 million won, surpassing 650 million won of Kim Hye-sung (Kiwoom) for the highest eighth-year salary, while SSG's Choi Jeong, who signed a free agent contract before the season, also recorded the highest salary in the 21st year at 1.7 billion won.
Choi Hyung-woo, who boasts the longest career as a registered player in the KBO League with 24 years, also set a new record for annual salaries. Choi Hyung-woo recorded a salary of 1 billion won, surpassing Lee Ho-jun's (NC) 750 million won from 2017.
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