[MyDaily = Reporter Bang Geum-suk] As pro baseball fever spills beyond stadiums and into everyday life, jerseys and merch—often called baseball IP (intellectual property)—have emerged as a bona fide fashion category.
Retail and fashion insiders say uniforms and fan gear are moving into the streetwear and lifestyle spaces, shifting purchases from one-off stadium buys to everyday wardrobe staples.
That trend is showing up in the numbers.
Hyungji Elite is pushing its sports business into a core growth pillar on the back of rising baseball-merch demand. That division posted half-year sales of 33.9 billion KRW (about $25.4 million), a 180% increase from a year earlier.
Hyungji Elite supplies uniforms and goods to pro teams like the Lotte Giants and SSG Landers, and has experimented with retro-uniform projects to turn baseball pieces into fashion items.
Riding that momentum, Hyungji Elite’s sports label 'WillBePlay' will open its first official store at Jamsil Lotte World Mall on the 11th.
The brand is anchoring the store in a high-traffic area popular with people in their 20s and 30s to expand customer touchpoints. The shop will feature a marking station that instantly adds names and jersey numbers to uniforms, boosting the hands-on experience.
Jung Seok-won, executive director of Hyungji Elite’s WillBe division, said the store is meant to be more than a retail outlet—it’s a place to expand the brand experience around baseball content.
He added the space will welcome not only Lotte Giants fans but also Jamsil Stadium visitors and other Seoul customers, making it easy for people to enjoy sports fashion in their daily lives.
Collaborations between baseball IP and fashion brands are picking up steam.
Lotte On unveiled its second collaboration on the 9th with the Lotte Giants and fashion label Politeru, turning team heritage and baseball culture into elevated everyday fashion.
The collection includes stadium jackets, hoodies, and track tops—pieces that work just as well in the street as they do at the ballpark. A lookbook featuring a flag-waving 'dad' tapped into fandom sentiment while trendy silhouettes appealed to Millennial and Gen Z shoppers.
A Lotte Giants representative said they maintained visual continuity with the first collaboration while making subtle design changes so the pieces easily fit into everyday styling.
Sports brand 'Spider' is also broadening consumer touchpoints with its 2026 authentic collection in collaboration with the Hanwha Eagles. The line improves lightness and breathability and refines silhouettes to balance function and style.
A Spider representative said they’ve launched collaborative products with Hanwha over the past three years and have seen a noticeable rise in customers in their 20s—both men and women—and more couples. The marking service that adds names and numbers to jerseys remains particularly popular, the rep added.
The blockcore look—reworking sports uniforms into casual pieces—is expected to stay in vogue for the near future.
A fashion industry insider predicted that uniforms are no longer exclusive to stadiums but have become common streetwear in neighborhoods like Hongdae and Seongsu-dong, and that products and services leveraging baseball IP will continue to expand, driven by strong fandom loyalty.
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