If you want to taste the most celebrated barbecued pork belly in Seoul, South Korea, you have to arrive early. The lines snake around the block at Geumdwaeji Sikdan, which translates as “Golden Pig.” The restaurant doesn’t accept reservations.
That is, unless Jung Hoo Lee happens to be your host.
“He planned everything,” said Rachel Heit, the San Francisco Giants’ chief marketing officer. “He selected the restaurant, which is apparently impossible to get into. Kanye West made it very popular. We got a lot of street cred for getting that reservation.”
It was not a small party, either. The Giants are in South Korea with a 17-person contingent that represents almost every department within the organization. That group includes president of baseball operations Buster Posey, CEO Larry Baer, general manager Zack Minasian, new manager Tony Vitello and shortstop Willy Adames. Heit helms the goodwill- and relationship-building tour, having seen an opportunity to grow the Giants’ international brand while they employ a center fielder who is instantly recognized anywhere he goes in the Asian nation.
“We are here to accomplish a few things: first and foremost, to show our support for Jung Hoo Lee, who has been an amazing host. It’s been great to see him interact with Willy and meet Tony Vitello for the first time in person,” Heit said. ” … From the business side, I’m really looking to grow the Giants brand in Korea — to let Korea know we love and respect Korea. We want the Korean people to be not just Jung Hoo Lee fans but Giants fans. If there’s anything I can do to promote Giants baseball here, that’s my objective.”
Willy Adames, manager Tony Vitello and Jung Hoo Lee made a stop at Seoul’s famed Namdaemun Gate. (Suzanna Mitchell / San Francisco Giants / Getty Images)
Heit spoke with The Athletic on Wednesday morning as she geared up for the second day of the whirlwind tour.
On Tuesday, the group split four ways while attending events throughout the city. Posey and Minasian sipped tea with Heo Koo-Youn, the commissioner for the Korea Baseball Organization. Adames and Vitello accompanied Lee for a tour of Namdaemun Market and Bukchon Hanok Village, where they participated in a cooking class and made bibimbap with celebrity chef Choi Hyun-Seok. They learned some classic Korean children’s games and met with local media. Then, they took an afternoon visit to MLB studios, where they had interviews with MLB Korea hosts, including former major-league pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim and K-pop star Johnny Suh.
Baer and Giants chief revenue officer Jason Pearl held meetings with associates from sponsors, including Hanwha Group, and sought to establish new partnerships with other Korean-based companies.
They finished the day with dinner at the Golden Pig. No standing in line required.
“It’s quite unusual that a major league club travels internationally without an MLB jewel event,” Heit said. “In fact, it might be one of the first trips of its kind. But MLB has been extremely supportive of this initiative, and Jung Hoo has been an amazing host.”
Jung Hoo Lee isn’t the same level of star as Shohei Ohtani, but the Giants aren’t expecting him to be. (Suzanna Mitchell / San Francisco Giants / Getty Images)
The itinerary on Wednesday included a trip to Incheon and the LG Twins complex, where new hitting coach Shane Robinson organized a baseball clinic for two high school teams, one of which was Lee’s alma mater, Whimoon. Adames ran infield drills and took part in a chalk talk along with Vitello and Lee. Then there’s one more dinner scheduled with more than 60 guests, among them general managers from each of KBO’s 10 franchises, along with partners and investors. Lee’s parents, including his father, former KBO star Jong Beom Lee, were scheduled to attend as well.
“We’re happy to be here and support Jung Hoo, support Korea,” Minasian said. “I’ve talked about it: I want the Giants to be big players in Asia, and hopefully this is an opportunity for us to give back a little bit.”
It’s been much harder for the Giants to create a sphere of influence in Japan, especially after the Los Angeles Dodgers out-recruited their rivals while signing two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and World Series MVP-winning pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Dodger Stadium is awash in advertisements from Japanese companies, and the organization is rolling in revenue from partnerships with tour companies. Thousands of Japanese fans have attended Dodgers games, taken stadium tours and paid a hefty price for behind-the-scenes access.
There’s no approaching that kind of frenzy within the Korean market. There’s no way that any player, including Lee, could be expected to make the kind of global impact that Ohtani has made on the Dodgers.
As Heit views it, however, if the Giants want to create a lasting association with Korean baseball fans, there’s no better time than now. Lee, 27, is entering the third season of his six-year, $113 million contract — he can opt out after the 2027 season — and Giants officials are optimistic that they haven’t seen the best from the contact-hitting center fielder.
Although Lee missed most of his first year with the Giants because of a dislocated shoulder and struggled at times to make adjustments while handling his first major-league grind, he remained popular with fans, and his jersey was among the most frequent in the stands. The Giants sold tickets in a special section they called the Jung Hoo Crew, but it was an organic fan group, calling themselves the Hoo Lee Gans, who were most visible with their flaming wigs and custom T-shirts.
Jung Hoo Lee took the Giants to play games in Bukchon Hanok Village, a historic area full of buildings dating back to the 19th century. (Suzanna Mitchell / San Francisco Giants / Getty Images)
In Seoul, the Jung Hoo Crew is exponentially larger. Roughly 80 percent of Giants games are televised by SPOTV, which is the MLB rightsholder in South Korea.
“While not the same as Ohtani, Jung Hoo is so beloved and so well known here,” Heit said. “We did think this was an authentic way to show the Giants to Korea and to do it now while Jung Hoo is such a prominent player on our team.”
Heit chuckled as she looked out the window of her high-rise hotel.
“You open your window shades, and there he is on a billboard for Tag Heuer watches,” Heit said. “He’s the star of their campaign.”
Could the Giants open a future season in Korea? That’s up to Major League Baseball, which coordinates international events. The Giants have yet to play a regular-season game on another continent, although they participated in a two-game series against the San Diego Padres in Mexico City in 2023. In 2024, when MLB staged the first regular-season games in Korea, the Dodgers and San Diego Padres faced one another at Gocheok Sky Dome. Heit said that Giants officials have let MLB know that if the world tour program returns to Korea, they’d love to be part of it.
They might stop for some more of that pork belly, too.
“That very much comes through MLB,” Heit said. “But I will say that since Jung Hoo Lee has been on our team, the Giants have communicated to MLB that we’d be excited to participate if and when the next MLB games happen in Korea.”