At one time, the name of the prestigious club that was the title sponsor of all professional sports in Korea and ranked high in all sports was ‘Samsung.’ And at the center of it all was the Samsung Lions, the first independent corporation of the Samsung sports team.
The baseball team, which was established as a Samsung affiliate, has kept its name since the launch of the KBO League and is a prestigious team that has reached the top eight times in total, including advancing to the Korean Series 17 times, the most in the country, and winning the combined championship for four consecutive years, the most in the league. Samsung looked forward to a bigger tomorrow as it moved its home stadium from the old Daegu Citizen Stadium to Daegu Samsung Lions Park. However, after that, Samsung entered a dark period, recording 99688, a ranking similar to that of a password. In 2021, they briefly played the first place match and the postseason, but they were unable to shake off the image of a low-ranking team, going back and forth between 7th and 8th place.
The Samsung Lions have a ranking that does not match Samsung's past reputation, but the situation of the baseball team can be said to be better. We take a deep dive into the crisis at Samsung Sports Team.
The biggest shock to our professional sports world in
the fall of 2023 is the fall of Suwon Samsung, a prestigious K-League team. Suwon Samsung, which founded Samsung Electronics as its parent company in December 1995, has been active in the K-League since 1996 and has always been at the top of the league rankings as well as in terms of audience mobilization. Although it was a prestigious club that won the league title four times and the FA Cup five times, and was at the top of the League Cup and Asian stage, it had to experience bottom place and relegation at the same time for the first time since the team was founded.
Men's volleyball and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, which won eight championships, more than the soccer team, also failed to avoid the fall. After winning for 7 consecutive years, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance fell away from the championship game after finishing runner-up in the 2014-15 season, and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, which finished in last place for the first time since its founding in the 2020-21 season, also took last place last season, putting its past reputation in vain.
The basketball team's situation is even more dire. In men's basketball, Seoul Samsung also established itself as a powerhouse by winning two championships in the 2000s, but soon fell into a team that was more familiar with the bottom tier. Among Samsung sports teams, the Samsung Lions are the only team that has not finished in last place.