Minister Choi Hwiyoung Visits Basketball Division League Site... Next Year's Budget to Increase by 71%

Choi Hwiyoung, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, visited the basketball division league held at Yonsei University Gymnasium on the afternoon of September 5, where he encouraged athletes and officials and listened to the vivid voices from the field of recreational sports.

On this day, the D3 league, the highest-level competition within the basketball division league, took place. The amateur teams "Uptempo" and "More," each composed of athletes in their 30s and 40s, competed for skill. Before the game, Minister Choi met with officials from the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee and the Korea Basketball Association to gather opinions from the field, then encouraged the athletes, performed the tip-off, and watched the game.

Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Hwee-Yong Choi is conducting a tip-off at the basketball division league held on the 5th at Yonsei University Gymnasium in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

The "division league" is a leading recreational sports league in which leagues are divided by skill level and operate a promotion and relegation system based on wins and losses, enabling amateur participants to play consistently and compete to improve their abilities. The primary goal is to activate continued sports participation among the public and to create a foundation that allows outstanding recreational athletes to organically transition to professional sports.

Since its introduction in football in 2017, the promotion and relegation league system has expanded to baseball, billiards, table tennis (2020), badminton, tennis, foot volleyball (2022), basketball, volleyball, handball, hockey (2025), ice hockey, flag football, lacrosse, and cricket (2026), and now operates across 15 sports with 2,461 leagues nationwide. Approximately 137,000 recreational athletes currently participate. In particular, since basketball adopted the system in 2025, it has become a leading sport in expanding the base for recreational sports, as people of all ages and groups—children, youth, adults, women, and seniors—actively participate. At present, division leagues are held in at least one sport across 216 out of 226 regions nationwide. Football leagues operate in 109 regions, baseball in 48, and other sports with significant division league presence include billiards (177 regions), table tennis (133), badminton (99), tennis (79), and foot volleyball (54).

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has set the 2027 division league operating budget at 47 billion won, an increase of 71.3% from the 27.4 billion won allocated in 2026, so that citizens can easily enjoy sports in their daily lives and fully develop their skills.

With the increased budget, plans for 2027 include expanding the number of region-based leagues at the city, county, and district levels, diversifying participation with customized leagues for children, youth, seniors, and women, and increasing the number of such tailored leagues. In addition, new sports will be introduced, and a nationwide "Championship of Champions" will be organized for each sport to boost public interest and participation. The ministry will also promote the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the sports sector, utilizing match and activity data accumulated from the field of recreational sports. The AI-based match analysis system, which was first introduced in volleyball in 2025, will be successively expanded—after technical development and data accumulation from 2027— to eight key sports by 2029: football, baseball, billiards, table tennis, badminton, tennis, foot volleyball, and basketball. This will systematically collect and manage athletes' match videos and activity data and provide customized data services, such as AI-based individual performance analysis.

Minister Choi stated, "The division league is not simply a one-off competition, but rather a solid foundation of recreational sports that enables amateur athletes to train steadily and improve their abilities," emphasizing, "We will continue to expand support for division leagues and all recreational sports so that even more citizens can enjoy sports close to home and realize their full potential."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.