From New Year's morning, sports reporters had already gathered at the KBO office.

"Why are the club presidents meeting today, anyway?"

"No idea. Who calls a meeting on New Year's morning?"

"Ugh… I need to be at the basketball arena. There's an important match today."

"My desk told me to head straight to the Suwon stadium the moment coverage here wraps up. Why on earth are the presidents suddenly meeting…"

The sports reporters gathered in front of the KBO office spoke with frowns and a note of irritation in their voices. Since baseball went into its off-season after the Korean Series, until spring camp opened, reporters shifted over to basketball and volleyball, the winter sports—for them, basketball and volleyball were the main event right now, not baseball.

"Nothing big's going to come out of this, right?"

"Has anything ever come out of a club-president gathering before? And what could possibly come out of one at the start of the new year? They probably just got together to say 'let's do well again next season' or something like that."

"Then why'd the desk send me out here. Such a hassle…"

The reporter, scratching his head with his pen, glanced at a fellow reporter from another paper sitting beside him. He seemed to feel the same way, twirling his pen with a bored expression.

"Still, I guess they sent us just in case something actually came up. Either way, it is strange for every club's president to gather at a time like this."

The sports reporters, gathered in the press room the KBO had set up, speculated about the meeting to come. But not one of them knew what today's gathering was actually about. And the same was true for most of the club presidents themselves.

"Good to see you."

"President Park, you're looking well? Something good happen?"

"Nothing good. I just came from the sauna before this, that's all."

The presidents of each club, arriving at the conference room, exchanged New Year's greetings warmly with one another.

"But why are we meeting today? We've never gathered like this on New Year's…