Baseball-MERS hits attendances, but KBO says fans coming back

SEOUL, June 30 (Reuters) - The outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea slashed attendances at local baseball games but fans are starting to come back, according to the Korea Baseball Organization. The average attendance at games fell from 12,716 in May, before the outbreak took hold, to 8,799 in the first week of June, the KBO said on Tuesday, a drop of 30 percent. Attendances fell further to an average of 7,148 in the second week of June as the death toll rose, the number of cases surged to triple figures and the country scrambled to cap the spread of the disease. However, by the third week numbers were on the rise and last week the average was 9,368 per game. MERS, which has killed 33 people in South Korea, forced thousands into quarantine and closed more than 2,000 schools. South Korea hopes the worst is now over as there have been no new local cases reported over the last three days, though health authorities remain vigilant. A KBO official, who requested anonymity, said it was difficult to tell whether numbers would return to pre-MERS levels right away. "I can't say for sure whether attendances will get back to the numbers in May since there are other factors to consider, such as the weather," he said. "The long rainy season is starting and that might affect numbers. "However, it does seem that people are becoming less anxious about MERS compared to when it peaked in the second week of June, so fans are starting to come back." While there were calls for Korea's top flight baseball and soccer leagues to postpone games until the outbreak had been contained, the KBO official said the decision to keep playing ball had been the right one. "Yes, we do view it as the right decision now that no one has caught MERS after attending a game," he said. "Baseball is one of the main sports leagues in South Korea and if we decided to postpone games by ourselves it could actually unsettle the nation more. "So we could not ignore the psychological effect the decision would have on the people and we had to follow national policies." The official also pointed out that movie theatres and department stores, which have a higher volume of foot traffic than baseball games, did not close their doors. (Reporting by Oh Seung-yun; Writing by Peter Rutherford, Editing by Ian Ransom)