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SEOUL — Korean American chef Austin Kang, owner of the Michelin Guide restaurant Mukjung in central Seoul, has collaborated with Major League Baseball on a new campaign called the MLB Breakfast Club. The initiative is aimed at South Korean fans who follow MLB games in the early morning hours because of the time difference, according to reporting by Yonhap News. Kang is hosting watch parties at Mukjung where fans can gather around big screens, sample dishes that fuse Mexican and American staples with Korean elements, and talk baseball.

The campaign launched with an offline event that featured three former players with MLB and Korea Baseball Organization ties: Eric Thames, Kim Byung-hyun and Dustin Nippert. Yonhap reported that the dishes are named after MLB players and that the broader goal is to incorporate big-league baseball into the everyday routines of Korean fans.

Coverage Comparison

Yonhap News provided multiple English-language accounts of the same initiative, each placing a different accent on the story while drawing on the same core facts. One report centered on Kang’s personal background and his dual passions for food and baseball, describing how he grew up in Los Angeles attending Dodgers games and eating Mexican food with friends during the era of pitcher Park Chan-ho. That account framed the Breakfast Club as a natural extension of Kang’s cross-cultural cooking and his more than a decade living in South Korea.

A second Yonhap piece focused on Eric Thames’s return to a country he calls his “second home.” It detailed Thames’s earlier success with the NC Dinos, where he won the 2015 regular-season MVP, and his continued affection for Korean food, weather and cities such as Busan. The report noted that Thames helped launch the campaign and planned to attend a KBO game while in Seoul.

A third account presented the launch as a collective effort by the trio of former players and the chef. It emphasized the practical challenge of morning viewing for Korean fans and quoted participants on the fun of gathering to watch games together. Across the reports, the tone remained consistently positive and promotional, with direct quotes from Kang, Thames and Kim, and no contradictory factual claims among the dispatches.

Key Claims

  • Austin Kang is a Korean American chef and owner of the Michelin Guide restaurant Mukjung in Seoul, as reported across Yonhap’s coverage.
  • Kang collaborated with MLB to launch the MLB Breakfast Club campaign targeting South Korean fans who watch games in the morning hours, according to multiple Yonhap reports.
  • The restaurant serves dishes named after MLB players that mix Mexican and Korean elements; fans are invited to watch-party events at Mukjung, Yonhap stated.
  • Eric Thames, a former MLB player who starred for the NC Dinos and won KBO regular-season MVP honors in 2015, helped launch the campaign and has described South Korea as his second home, per Yonhap.
  • Kim Byung-hyun and Dustin Nippert, both former MLB pitchers with subsequent KBO careers, also participated in the launch event, according to Yonhap.
  • The campaign’s stated aim is to bring MLB fans together for morning viewing and to weave big-league baseball into Korean fans’ daily routines, as described in Yonhap’s reporting.

Perspectives

From the chef’s vantage point, food is the bridge. Kang, who appeared at the event in a Shohei Ohtani Dodgers jersey, told Yonhap that what brings people and cultures together is food. He described Mukjung as an ideal setting for strangers to eat, drink, watch live baseball and discuss their favorite teams, calling the blend of American and Korean culinary traditions natural given his own background.

Former players emphasized personal ties and the distinctive rhythm of following MLB from Korea. Thames, speaking at the launch, said he tries to visit once or twice a year and cannot fully express how much the welcome means to him. He singled out Korean meat dishes, known as gogi, along with the weather and trips to Busan as reasons he keeps returning. Kim Byung-hyun, now a television commentator on MLB games and a restaurant owner himself, noted that the time difference forces morning viewing yet can be enjoyable in its own way; he expressed hope that the Breakfast Club would draw more Korean fans to the majors. Nippert joined the same launch gathering, rounding out a group whose careers spanned both leagues.

Taken together, the accounts portray the MLB Breakfast Club as a marketing and community effort that pairs nostalgia and celebrity with a concrete venue and menu, seeking to turn solitary early-morning streams into shared social occasions centered on food and baseball.