K-POP Tour Revenue Hits Record High, Yet Industry Suffers from a “7-Year Dilemma”

K-POP achieved its best-ever performance in the tour market in 2025. According to Billboard’s statistics, K-POP artists accounted for 7.7% of the top 100 tours this year, showing continuous growth from 5.1% in 2023 and 4% in 2019. Unlike in 2019 when BTS ranked third among all-genre tours, this year eight K-POP groups made it into the top 100 tours without BTS. In terms of annual tour revenue, SEVENTEEN topped the list with $14.24 million (approximately 19.9 billion won), while Stray Kids exceeded $100 million. The revenue of the top 10 tour artists increased significantly compared to the previous year. For example, iTZY, which ranked 10th last year with $6 million (approximately 840 million won), earned $18 million (approximately 25.2 billion won) this year, far exceeding that figure.

Meanwhile, structural contradictions lie at the core of the K-POP industry. According to statistics from the Korea Content Promotion Agency, as of 2025, launching one fourth-generation or fifth-generation idol group and reaching the break-even point (BEP) requires an average cost of over 10 billion won. This is because expenses for global promotion, world tours, and high-quality content production have increased exponentially. An even bigger issue is the seven-year contract period specified in the “Standard Exclusive Contract for Popular Culture Artists” established by the Fair Trade Commission in 2009. Although this clause was set at seven years to prevent the drawbacks of long-term contracts following past cases like TVXQ!’s exclusive contract, it is now considered incompatible with modern industry conditions. A representative from a major entertainment company said, “The point at which initial investment costs are recovered and profits begin to be generated has shifted from 2–3 years after debut in the past to 4–5 years now. Yet since the contract period remains fixed at seven years, the time companies can maximize profits is only about 2–3 years.” This leads to conservative investment in developing new artists or forces them to endure excessive schedules from the beginning of their careers. Yoon Dong-hwan, head of the Korean Music Federation, explained, “In the past, it was possible to invest for about three years, recover that amount over two years, and generate profits in the remaining two years. But with much larger investment amounts, it now takes over three years just to recover the principal. Creating a meaningful profit structure within a seven-year contract period has become almost impossible.”

For small entertainment companies, launching one new group typically requires an average of 3–5 billion won, all of which are upfront investment risks borne by the companies themselves. For artists, seven years have the exact opposite effect. In a rapidly changing industry landscape, seven years is a sufficiently long time for an artist’s image to become outdated. Recently, there has been an increase in cases where idol group members separate their personal and group activities or file requests to suspend their exclusive contracts even before the contract expires. Bang Min-soo, chairman of the newly established Idol Union, argued that the seven-year period specified in current standard contracts should be reduced to five years, stating that this is the maximum compromise possible given an idol’s lifespan and experience level. He also criticized this contradiction for creating the problem of “abandoned idols.” From the perspective of entertainment companies, however, they prefer “contract flexibility” rather than simple deregulation. Lee Nam-kyung, director of the Korea Management Federation, explained, “It’s not that entertainment companies unconditionally want long contracts. They want to stay with profitable artists for a longer time, but for those who are not, they want to resolve contracts flexibly.” For small companies, the renewal rate is extremely low, leading to frequent disbandments of groups after just 1–2 years of activity. Ultimately, the number seven functions as a “limit on profit generation” for large entertainment companies and a “period of opportunity denial” for unknown idols, straining both sides. This is why improving domestic contract structures is urgent even as the K-POP industry continues to grow globally.