ESPN to air South Korean baseball

US broadcaster ESPN has reached an agreement with South Korea's Korea Baseball Organisation to air games in the upcoming 2020 season, the network said in a statement on Monday.

ESPN will televise six regular season games per week, starting with coverage from the opening day of the 2020 KBO campaign on Tuesday.

"We're thrilled to become the exclusive English-language home to the KBO League and to showcase its compelling action and high-level of competition," said Burke Magnus, ESPN's executive vice president of programming.

"We have a long-standing history of documenting the game of baseball and we're excited to deliver these live events to sports fans."

The season-opener features the NC Dinos and Samsung Lions.

ESPN's deal with the KBO comes with US baseball fans starved of live action because of the coronavirus shutdown.

Major League Baseball was due to start in March but the season has been postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sport across North America has ground to a virtual standstill due to the pandemic, with every major professional league either halted or delayed.

© 2020 AFP