THE BUNDESLIGA FAQ  98/99 MAGAZINE / March 99
Marketing, Bayern Munich and the National team
(Click on 'The Bundesliga FAQ' for an index of the 2-monthly updates)
 
This is a part of of  THE BUNDESLIGA FAQ / BUNDESLIGA FAQ MAGAZINE
as a component of  THE SHOT THAT PASSED RIGHT THROUGH THE NET
What is the contrast between the way in which football is marketed in England and Germany? I am finding it difficult to get information on the clubs in Germany? There might be a connection between conservative thinking and the slump German football is in off and on the pitch...
 
  and now...  
What's the matter with the 'Mannschaft'? - Part 3?		 No! Not again. Although the story of the parallels between politics and football could become a serial without end. Read the stuff from the last two times and you can easily guess out this months episode... 
*if you did not know: USA beat Germany 3:0
 

 
 
 
 
What is the contrast between the way in which football is marketed in England and Germany? I am finding it difficult to get information on the clubs in Germany? 
back to index
 
  
 You will find out quickly that information in English is rare (or at 
least it has been as I last checked). This is one of the signs for that 
markerting is seen conservatively in Bundesliga. The clubs are taking the 
'gifts' like the sale of merchandising and tv-rights but in the past they 
have waited more or less for somebody knocking on the door and offering a 
suitcase full of money.  

 This actually happened through the change in the 
TV-market in Germany when private channels went online and grew strong 
between 1985 and 95 and was helpes by the general football boom of the 
90's. But those changes have not been the consequence of the policy of 
the clubs but they were 'given'. So most clubs have the same organisation 
structures like they had 1950 and they are starting to transform just 
now. So you cannot find a single club that is an economic company (that 
has owners or shareholders). They are all registered clubs. But this 
might change for some in the near future. 
  
 Two clubs that have begun earlier and are pursuing growth more 
agressively are Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. They are members of 
the G14, the organisation of the most influential European clubs that 
sooner or later might form an European superleague. 
Yet export has not played a big role but Bayern seems to seek a change 
here. First of all they want to sell their export TV-rights alone and not 
as part of a Bundesliga-package. Then they hired Iranian striker Ali Daei 
in the beginning of the season 98/99 and so opened up the door to a 
soccer-mad country in love with merchandise stuff like player shirts and 
by this they have increased attractivity even in whole Asia. (If one sees 
what hysteria the appearance of Japanese star Nakata in Italy at Perugia 
creates at home in Japan, this is one means for the future to establish 
huge export sales in TV-rights and merchansdising). 

 Now as the arrival of digital TV promises even another 'gift' the league 
is split over their policy. Bayern and Dortmund on one side, the rest of 
the clubs on the other. The league itself is too attractive to fall apart 
at this moment but one day the times of 'gifts' should be over and the 
gap between those two sides might have become svery big. 

 But until today all negative predictions have not come true. This is the 
first season since a long time ago in which rich Bayern totally 
dominates. It is only two years ago when the 'experts' predicted that 
never(!) another team than Bayern or Dortmund will become champions 
again. Only twelve months later fresh promoted Kaiserslautern won the 
thing by a completely different concept. 
 
 
 
 
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