All sports have winners and losers. The winning team enjoys the glory of winning and receives cheers and the spotlight, while the team that loses must swallow the pain of defeat. However, the winning team and the losing team have in common the support of fans regardless of victory or defeat. This can be seen in the 2022 KBO Pennant Race, which is currently being contended.

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 The KBO, the Korean professional baseball league, determines the ranking of each team in the regular season pennant race, and then only the top 5 teams can participate in the postseason and try to win the Korean Series. Each team is competing fiercely to advance to the postseason or to get a more advantageous position in the postseason. There are also some teams for whom it is impossible to advance to the postseason. Those are the 7th placed Samsung Lions and 9th placed Doosan Bears. Both teams are far behind fifth place, so it is virtually impossible for them to advance to the postseason regardless of the remaining matches. Even though they know that further victories have nothing to do with rankings, fans sing cheering songs, applaud the players for their play, and comfort the players by looking forward to the next season.

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 Some sports clubs have moved away from ranking competition by often "tanking" themselves. Tanking means deliberately not doing your best to win in order to draft a better rookie in the next season. Naturally, strategic tanking can also benefit the team in the long run by bringing in good players the following year. But, fundamentally, the purpose of the existence of a sports club is not for performance and winning, but for the fans, who are consumers. If it is accompanied through good results, fans will cheer and rejoice more, but even if not, true fans consistently show affection and support for the team. In order to repay the love of these fans, it is natural for professional players to always do their best.

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  A sports club cannot exist without its fans. Former basketball coach Choi Hee-am said, "The reason why we are loved even when we don't succeed is because we have fans." As such, fans should be considered the top priority of the club. Fans come to the stadium to cheer for the players and team in any situation. For these fans' enthusiasm, players must always repay them by putting in their best effort. Isn't that the true spirit of sports, to repay the love of the fans and play great games to entertain and impress them?

78th Cub Reporter · JOUNG DONG JUN · beancurd123@kyonggi.ac.kr