Prospects and Strategic Challenges of Korean Sports Movies

The purpose of this study is to examine the current status and characteristics of Korean sports movies and propose the prospect and strategic challenges of them. To attain the objectives, the present study reviewed domestic sports movies of last 10 years and analyzed expert interviews and literatures. Such effort found that 11 sports movies ranked within 200 hit films that have been released since 2004. Of them, the movie "National Team" (by director Kim Young Wha) released in 2009 recorded 8 million audience, ranking on the 9th of the total and top of sports movies. It is expected that sports movie will have further growth potential along with change of existing movies and be digitalized and globalized. In the meantime, the strategic challenges that Korean sports movies have to tackle to grow are to i) target an unconventional segment of audience and make a plot targeting it, ii) break traditional development of events and character composition, iii) make non-fiction movies that can impress audience and iv) make an effort to arouse social interest in unaccustomed area.