Strongest Baseball (Clean Baseball). A baseball variety show airing on JTBC since 2022. It features retired legends like Lee Dae-ho and Jung Keun-woo alongside college and high school players. It was a massive hit.
But for the 2025 season, a rift formed between the production house 'Studio C1' and the network 'JTBC.' They started a massive feud, with both sides claiming they own the copyright to the show. (As a fellow dogdripper, I'm not taking sides here.)
Amidst this bloody battle, Jang Si-won—the CEO of Studio C1 and the PD behind hits like *The Fishermen and the City* and *Steel Troop*—
Took the entire cast (announcers, players, and even the manager), changed the team name and show title, and launched 'Flame Baseball.' The format is identical. Since he took the original cast, he absorbed the fanbase and has been doing fine? He’s been making bank through live-ticketed games and even scored major sponsors like KakaoPay Securities and CleanWrap.
Obviously, JTBC lost their minds. They demanded a halt to production and filed for a preliminary injunction to ban the broadcast.
Studio C1 ignored them and kept producing the show regardless.
After a long fight, as of this past Friday, the injunction was granted, giving JTBC the win.
Studio C1 decided to appeal, but since the injunction is in effect, they're in a huge mess. (Production, broadcasting, and distribution are all banned.)
Then, they suddenly dropped the latest episode—originally scheduled for Monday—out of nowhere today...
Now they're live-streaming the remaining episodes for the 2025 season at full throttle, trying to dump everything before the legal effect officially hits (once the ruling is served). It's common for production teams and networks to be separate entities, and they often copy formats or poach staff, but this 'no-brakes' Makgora is a first. The whole industry is watching this play out.
"It's a chaotic legal showdown where a production team is pulling a 'burn the house down' move by airing everything before the legal ban hits, while fans are torn between hating the network's greed and the production's shady accounting."
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