On March 21st, YG announced their 2023 financial statement
Immediately, netizens paid attention to the large bill of 41.185 billion won in the “contract down payment” category. This is the required payment the entertainment agency needs to pay when they want to sign an exclusive contract with artists.
In 2023, YG did not sign with any new artists or renew contracts with any of their current artists except for BLACKPINK. In the case of BABYMONSTER, their debut project had been planned before then so the investment in training the rookie girl group and debuting them did not belong to the above category. Therefore, netizens speculated that 41 billion won is BLACKPINK’s contract down payment and each member received about 10 billion won for their decision to renew the group contract.
The theqoo post regarding this became a hot topic with over 50,000 views as of the morning of March 22nd. Below are some comments from Korean netizens.
Original post: theqoo
– Please give us more new songs
– Considering BLACKPINK’s tour revenue, it’s not surprising. The “Born Pink” tour hit the jackpot, and I’m really looking forward to the next one
– Wow, 10 billion won per person plus individual activities allowed, this is definitely a great contract for BLACKPINK
– Looking at the contract fees, group activities are definitely guaranteed. More group albums and tours are expected
– Without BLACKPINK, the current state of YG is worse than other mid-sized agencies. They need to hold onto BLACKPINK, even if they have to give more
– Since they re-signed at the end of last year, they will likely focus more on individual activities in 2024 and have plenty of group activities in the future
– Huh? Isn’t this a headcanon? What about other celebrities?
– With 10 billion won per person for 7 years, they’ll definitely be active as a whole