Professional basketball Goyang Carrot stood at the crossroads of its existence within a year of its founding. The operator, Day One Sports (Day One), is in the process of selling the basketball team because of the parent company’s management difficulties. As a result, concerns about whether the professional basketball playoffs this season can be held normally are raising their heads.
Day One said on the 8th that it is negotiating with a domestic company to acquire a basketball team. An official from Dayone said, “As the parent company (Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering) went into court receivership, difficulties arose in supporting the basketball team, so we started negotiations to take over from the end of last year.”
After the end of the 2021-22 season, Day One acquired Goyang Orion and founded a new team, Goyang Carrot. With ‘Basketball President’ Heo Jae as the CEO, it attracted attention from inside and outside the basketball world, and like the professional baseball Kiwoom Heroes, it also attracted Carrot Insurance and naming sponsors for four years to develop its self-sustainability.
However, Day One and Goyang Carrot struggled with funding problems even before the start of the season. In June of last year, when reviewing new member companies for the Korean Basketball League (KBL), they submitted poor data and failed to instill faith in financial stability in KBL and other clubs, and in the end, Day One’s approval to join was suspended once.
We managed to get approval to join, but there were several signs that the red light was on for Day One’s funding. First of all, they decided to pay 500 million won out of the 1.5 billion won special membership fee, which is the cost of joining KBL, by October 7 last year, but failed to keep the deadline. Day One only paid it in full on October 12 last year, when the opening of the regular season (October 15 last year) was imminent. 온라인바카라
Also, during the season, even the wages of the players and the secretariat were not paid on time. Day One is the pay day on the 5th of every month, but last month it was postponed to the 10th, and this month, it continues to be uneasy, promising to pay wages only on the 10th.
A bigger problem is that Day One may not be able to pay the balance of the special membership fee (1 billion won), which must be paid by the 31st of next month. Goyang is currently ranked 5th in the league (20-19), but if the special dues are not paid in full, they will not be able to participate in the league, and an unprecedented situation may occur in which they cannot play the playoffs even if they make it to the top 6. A KBL official said, “We are closely monitoring the situation and conducting internal discussions.” “If (special dues) are not paid, we are leaving open all possibilities, such as exclusion of Goyang from the playoffs and advancing to the playoffs of the next ranked team.”
Regarding this, an official from Day One said, “As long as we are running a basketball team until this season, the parent company will take responsibility and pay the special dues within the deadline.”