[KBO Team] Attention: NC Dinos has become a team having the most fans

NC Dinos setting up the second hometown in the states, North Carolina.

 

Durham Bulls mascot, Bulls, with NC Dinos mascots, Dandi and Sseri.

In April, ESPN announced to televise KBO games from the opening series of Samsung Lions and NC Dinos to the Korean Series in November for desperate baseball audience in the states. The former big league fans started to choose their supporting/favorite team out of ten in the KBO for various reasons. Some of Dodgers fans picked Hanwha eagles from which Ryu Hyun-jin, a former Dodgers pitcher who won National League ERA leader title in the last season, came in 2013. Minnesota citizens found LG Twins as a brother, sharing the same last name. Those who look for potential champions would have already looked up a report on the prospects of each team, mostly going for Doosan Bears (the last season champion) and Kiwoom Heroes (ESPN predicted Heroes to win the championship). Whatever reasons to choose a certain team, baseball fans seemed to enjoy their unlimited will to support out of their location as a ‘home’ team no longer existed in the new league. However, there is one state whose citizens expressed collective and congruent cheers to one specific KBO team – NC Dinos. How this team located in a city of one million habitants could captivate the attention of the entire state of ten million?

MLB(Major League Baseball) teams in the U.S.

While North Carolina is placed at ninth in population, none of 30 MLB teams is assigned to its hometown. People living in the North eastern region near New York city have at least four major league stadiums – Yankees Stadium(New York Yankees), City Field(New York Mets), Fenway Park(Boston Redsox), and Citizens Bank Park(Philadelphia Phillis) – to visit and enjoy baseball. But North as well as South Carolinas have nothing but sitting on the couch, holding beer, and watching people in other states appreciating baseball games in only few yards away from the home plate. Baseball fans in North Carolina had craved for their home team for more than a century but did not expect to have their team in Korea. NC Dinos, sharing the same acronym NC with North Carolina, has become an alternative for the earnest North Carolina fans.

 

One bsaeball fan living in North Carolina uploaded NC Dinos logo decorated with real dinosaurs.

 

 

 

 

 

NC Dinos share several similarities with North Carolina, and I would like to share two of them. First, as mentioned earlier, NC also represents North Carolina as NY does New York and LA does Los Angeles. All of the big league teams have names of ‘city name + a word representing the team or city’ style, Cleveland Indians for instance, but NC Dinos was simply named after the team’s parent company NC soft. The Dinos and North Carolina tweeted ‘we are meant to meat, it’s destiny’ to each other, although the managers of the computer game company NC soft had had no relationship with the states at all. Second, North Carolina is one of the regions in which a lot of dinosaur fossils have been discovered. Dinos is an abbreviation of dinosaurs, and the mascots of the Dinos are personified dinosaurs called Dandi and Sseri. In the last year, another dinosaur named Duli, a famous Korean cartoon character in the 80s, was adopted to be the third mascot of the team. Following the conventional rule to name the sports team in America, North Carolina has found Dinos fit perfectly with the image of North Carolina as a place abundant with dinosaurs.

A cheering message "안녕, 창원?(What's up, Changwon?)" uploaded on Durham Bulls, a minor league team in North Carolina, instagram account.

The Dinos was established in 2013 as the ninth member of the Korean baseball league and the first team located in an ordinary city Changwon while the others in the metropolitan cities like Seoul and Incheon. The team has gained relatively small fame compared to its grades because of its short history and short distance from Busan where Lotte Giants with the largest fan group is located. Thus, the Dinos welcomed the new fan club in thousands of miles away. When the Dinos held their first game of the season in Changwon, “What’s up, North Carolina?” sign on the huge screen was aired to all states, including North Carolina. It was a reply to North Carolina’s official tweet “What’s up, Changwon?” The Dinos also appreciated support from the other NC by inviting mascots of university baseball teams located in North Carolina as special guests.

 

(L) Reply to North Carolina, "What's up, North Carolina?"  (R) Mascots of baseball teams in North Carolina sitting right behind the home plate in Changwon

The Dinos has become the team of the largest number of fans from the smallest in the shortest period. While it was placed at 5th in the last season, believe it or not, the Dinos is cruising along without a hitch for the championship in the first place of the ranking thanks to support from North Carolina. The unique relationship between Changwon and North Carolina has elevated both places from obscurity regarding the baseball to stardom in both nations. The future of the accompany is looking rosy for two NCs at the end of this season. I am not a fan of NC Dinos, but expect them to have a beautiful joint celebration if the Dinos winning the championship.

 

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