We have a deal! By we, I mean that baseball-starved fans who live in the United States will be able to watch English-language broadcasts of regular season baseball thanks to an agreement between ESPN and the Korea Baseball Organization, whose Opening Day is Tuesday, May 5. Here’s the first-week schedule:

Yes, those hours are ungodly if you live on the East Coast, but if you have a TiVO or other DVR and can manage to avoid spoilers, it’s probably worth your trouble, assuming you’re already an ESPN subscriber. The deal covers the entire season, including the postseason and the best-of-seven Korea Series.The Worldwide Leader’s broadcasters will be coming at you remotely; they’re not in South Korea. It’s hardly a perfect set-up, but then what about this current situation in the pandemic is? Particularly with MLB’s opening a long ways off, I’ll take what I can get.

Here are some more details about the deal:

In anticipation of the KBO’s Opening Day, we’ve had a good amount of content on the league here recently:

• “Half a World Away, the Korea Baseball Organization Looks to Play,” by Jay Jaffe. Some background about the league as well as highlights from my interviews with FanGraphs alumni Josh Herzenberg and Sung Min Kim, both of whom now work for the KBO’s Lotte Giants, and Aaron Tassano, an Arizona-based international scout for the Samsung Lions.
• “Get to Know the KBO, Part 1” and “Part 2,” by Ben Clemens. Capsules on the 30 foreign players playing for the league’s 10 teams.
• “FanGraphs Audio: Ben Clemens Gets to Know the KBO”: Ben and Meg Rowley discuss his series on the KBO and what each is most looking forward to about engaging with the league this season.
• “Putting KBO Players in an MLB Context,” by Dan Szymborski. ZiPS translations for the top KBO hitters and pitchers.
• “Nothing Lost in Translation: Meet Dan Kurtz, the KBO’s Top Ambassador, Part 1,” by Jay Jaffe. My email interview with Dan Kurtz, who as the proprietor of the MyKBO.net site and @MyKBO Twitter feed is an outstanding English-language resource for the league. (I’ll add the link for Part 2 when it runs on Tuesday morning.)
• “Effectively Wild Episode 1533: It’s Baseball O’Clock Somewhere”: Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley also spoke with Kurtz, reviewing the players and teams to know, the aesthetic and stylistic differences between the KBO and MLB, the history and evolution of the league, its fluctuating home run rates, the foreign-player presence, and KBO’s embrace of sabermetrics.

Yes, it’s half a world away, but Happy Opening Day to those who plan to follow along starting tonight in the US!