Is SSGElectros.com the new home of the SK Wyverns?

Baseball

Published: 17 Feb. 2021, 14:04

Is SSGElectros.com the new home of the SK Wyverns?

Electroman, the mascot of electronics chain Electro Mart, could be the mascot if the Wyverns are rebranded as the SSG Electros. [EMART]

Shinsegae Group appears to have purchased SSGElectros.com at the end of January, suggesting the recently-purchased SK Wyverns are about to become the SSG Electros.

A domain name search on record compiler who.is reveals that SSGElectros.com was registered on Jan. 28. Although details of the person that purchased the domain are hidden, the record clearly shows that it is linked to Shinsegae Group's servers: ddns.shinsegae.co.kr and ns.shinsegae.co.kr.

Domain tracking website who.is shows that SSGElectros.com was registered to the Shinsegae servers on Jan. 28. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Shinsegae also appears to have registered other variations of the website, including SSGElectros.net and SSGElectros.shop.

Although the new name of the Incheon team has not been officially confirmed, Shinsegae confirmed on Feb. 1 that they had applied to trademark the name Electros, saying it was a possible contender for the name of the club.

"In the process of preparing to name the baseball team, we filed a trademark application for the name Electros," Shinsegae said in a statement at the time.

At that point in the process, there was no indication which of Shinsegae's many brands it planned to incorporate into the team's name.

Shinsegae Group and SK Telecom announced at the end of January that Shinsegae was buying the Incheon-based SK Wyverns to be managed by supermarket chain Emart.

Emart bought the Wyverns for 135.2 billion won ($122 million). The retail company paid 100 billion won for a 100-percent stake in the club and 35.2 billion won for facilities and properties. The deal will be finalized next week and Shinsegae plans to officially unveil the team's new name, emblem and mascot in March, before the new season begins at the start of April. The 2021 exhibition games are set to begin on March 20, so the announcement will likely come before then.

But it looks like the team will be called the Electros, named after Emart's electronics store chain Electro Mart. If that is the case, it will likely also share the chain's mascot Electroman, a conveniently pre-packaged option for the new club as Electroman already comes with a recognizable brand, image and product line-up.

The decision to use the SSG branding also doesn't come as a huge surprise, as Shinsegae was rumored in February to be considering using its e-commerce brand SSG.com in the name of the team to raise awareness of the relatively new business.

Although written as SSG, Shinsegae refers to the e-commerce brand as if it is a word — sseug, pronounced with a soft "G" more like sseuk. In fact, the Korean logo for the e-commerce brand is the word sseug, rather than SSG. It's unclear whether the baseball team would follow this pronunciation style.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]