Sports woo and films fail

Posted on : 2007-07-02 12:25 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
National Statistical Office releases new figures on both industries

This year, the sports industry is enjoying brisk sales, while the film industry is struggling with dwindling revenues.
The sports industry is gaining sales as more people buy tickets for the professional leagues, including baseball, soccer, volleyball and basketball, but film industry revenues fell again for the second straight month.

According to the National Statistical Office (NSO) on July 1, sports industry sales, which include ticket sales from the professional leagues of baseball, soccer, basketball and volleyball, jumped 27.1 percent in May from the same period last year, outperforming a 5.6 percent rise in sales in the service sector in the same month.

For the first five months of this year, the sports industry’s average sales growth-rate stood at 14.6 percent, compared with a 2.1 percent decline for the same period a year ago.

‘‘In January and February, the professional basketball and volleyball leagues succeeded in wooing fans. In April and May, professional baseball and soccer leagues also gained huge popularity. Such facts can be attributed to the double-digit growth rate in sales in the sports industry,’’ said an NSO official.

By contrast, the movie industry posted a 0.7 percent decline in sales in May, following a 6.1 percent fall in April and an 8 percent rise in March. The film industry’s sluggish sales reflect a decline in the number of moviegoers and Korean film studios’ failure to produce a box-office hit. For the first five months of this year, the number of movie tickets sold in Seoul was about 19 million, compared with some 21 million tickets sold in the same period last year.



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