By all means, please do that, and give us your corrections and explanations. I'm just plucking numbers from websites.
German Football 20/21
- Thread starter do.ob
- Start date
No need to be dramatic. I think it's a perfectly reasonable argument to ask why the traditional clubs that bring in the masses should extend the solidarity principle to clubs who play by different rules and leech off of their popularity. That doesn't mean it should be a closed competition, just that the clubs who stick by 50+1 (and that includes smaller clubs as well) don't support the clubs that don't.
Obviously you are right that no fans of those traditional clubs would switch to RB Leipzig. But what about the next generation, who are becoming fans now? I believe they have a very good chance to convince a lot of those people.
So, for the ease of argument, let's assume there are only 10 clubs (5 games per match day) in the league and that the conference makes up 50% of the audience of matches at the same time (that's roughly the standard according to my quick research).
| Match | Time | Audience | Quota |
| Bayern vs. Dortmund | 18:30 | 2.000.000 | 2.000.000 |
| Conference | 15:30 | 1.000.000 | - |
| Freiburg vs. Wolfsburg | 15:30 | 100.000 | 200.000 |
| Mainz vs. Hoffenheim | 15:30 | 200.000 | 400.000 |
| Frankfurt vs. Augsburg | 15:30 | 300.000 | 300.000 |
| Schalke vs. Bremen | 15:30 | 400.000 | 800.000 |
The underlying formula if you're playing during the conference: Own audience + share of overall non-conference audience * conference audience
What this means that people who actively decided for neutrality during a match are still counted in favor of the bigger matches, effectively doubling the difference between audience sizes. Moreover, clubs who get many top matches profit from that immensely while those who have to share the attention with other clubs all the time are severely punished.
Also, the situation in the table isn't taken into account at all. During the end of the season, the battles for relegation are typically registering the highest numbers, especially if the champion is already known and the international positions are more or less clear. So Schalke would get higher audiences if it's fighting relegation than if it is securing a mid table finish. Achieving your goals early on also gets punished. Or another scenario: If a big game of yours is played at the same time as, say, Schalke vs. Dortmund, then this will really hurt you result wise.
So I assume that to at least somewhat level their playing fields, each club is guaranteed a certain number of top matches. That might even be the reason why we are sometimes seeing very weird fixtures during the best time.
The match schedule will hamper with these statistics so severely, as will self fulfilling prophecies.
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Still waiting for you to list examples where your regular business man investor has turned a regular club into an European powerhouse. You've got the entire rest of Europe to pick from.
You're just connecting things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other (50 + 1 and audience sizes) to have a go at what you consider plastic clubs. And the arguments that you use to do so could come directly out of the mouth of Flo Perez or Joel Glazer. Only that you're more selective with which clubs you want to exclude from the cake.
So you think the Bundesliga being financially far behind every other European top league despite being played in the wealthiest country of the continent has nothing to do with 50 + 1, the one thing that distinguishes it from it's competitors?
Clubs that don't abide by 50+1 are "plastic", as in artifical constructs, elevated above their natural station. "Plastic" clubs are not (nearly as) attractive to fans or sponsors.
In the 2019 season there were four games that officially registered as 0 viewers. Can you guess which clubs were involved?
While I still agree with your sentiment, one has to admit that language plays a huge part here as well. There are obvious deficits in terms of marketing, but still, it is much harder to export a product like Bundesliga compared to PL and La Liga. Oh, and colonialism obviously, which is kind of tied to the language.
1.268 million speakers (english)
538 million speakers (spanish)
132 million speakers (german)
Still, 50+1 is a huge gatekeeper.
Leipzig is highly attractive for fans and sponsors. Leverkusen, Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg are not very attractive due to their geographical situation. If a club like Hertha, HSV, 1860 München, Schalke or the likes would get an investor (without 50+1) do you really think the pull for fans and sponsors would not be huge?
Please just answer my question. It should be easy if your logic applies.
Bundesliga is left behind (relatively speaking), because a) it was late to the party when football became globalized and commercialized, b) Germany doesn't have natural markets like former colonies or South America for La Liga c) Germans are only willing to pay a fraction of what (e.g.) Brits lay out for their football subscriptions and d) Bayern are the only (big) club that has been doing consistently good work for more than a decade.
Someone should tell Nike, because they apparently only pay them €6m a year.
That's funny. You know why Bayern, Dortmund etc. nowadays are the traditional clubs they are? Because they started commercialization earlier than their local rivals. So much for "natural station". And why would RB Leipzig be less attractive for a league sponsor than, say, Kaiserslautern? Do you think they care if the logo on the chest of that team is of a sponsor or investor? It's taking attention away from them anyway. What they care about is audience. And one way or another, the plastic clubs as you call them have been very good for the actual quality of the league and quite a few seasons would have been incredibly dull without their participation.
One could even argue that sponsors want a club like RB Leipzig in the league because every story needs a good old fashioned villain, right?
And by the way, every professional club is essentially just an advertising platform from a business perspective. Bayer, VW and RB aren't financing the clubs out of love for the fans but because they have a business goal in mind. They expect a return in one way or another. What's the difference between that and a sponsor? It's just another way to sell the attention you're generating.
Good point but in a globalized world, I don't think it really matters that much anymore. The coverage usually is in your native language anyway, the interviews with the officials and players are being translated and the consumption of stuff like the highlight videos I mentioned is language independent. I mean, the EPL is far more popular in countries where the average English level is relatively poor.
The German mentality and cautiousness regarding new media formats is simply deeply ingrained in league and club officials. They're intuitively suspect of it. That's why the league was so restrictive with user generated content, for example. For me, that's one of the primary drivers of the Bundesliga's lack of globalisation.
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That's Leipzig's problem, isn't it? Of course it severely limits your advertising platform because you apportion larger parts of it than average to your investor. But what has this to do with the league and it's sponsors? Do you really think they care in which relation the club stands to the logo it bears on its chest?
And no, it's not easy because I don't know the backgrounds of clubs in all of Europe. But you don't even need to look that far. Leverkusen was one of the best lead and most innovative clubs in the league between the 90s and 2010s, Leipzig has taken that spot now. If abandoning 50 + 1 wasn't a success model, you wouldn't even need to hate on the plastic clubs. You're contradicting yourself.
The lack of globalization for me also comes down to 50 + 1 to some extent. No matter how you put it, it's definitely a difference if you have experienced business people leading your club who'll always think about (and know) how to generate new revenues streams or somebody who has absolutely no clue about such things. Look at the people who were in charge at most clubs throughout the 00s. Do you really think all those former pros would've been the leaders of said clubs under different circumstances?
Guys you're wasting your time. I've challenged @Zehner before what "innovative" stuff that isn't based on a huge financial advantage separates the likes of RB from your average Bundesliga team and he hasn't come up with an answer before. He loves paddling these PR statements City or Red Bull throw out about "progressive thinking" or "innovation" without acknowledging that all that stuff, infrastructure, youth academies, transfers are just built on a huge financial advantage with no economic risks if things go wrong - something these other clubs simply can't afford. It's this great myth that they're just the smartest kid in school and that's the only reason they're successful...not their rich daddies that foster their advantage at every opportunity possible.
But hey, last time I was told I'm just blinded by hatred and if you run out of arguments at least there's always Schalke to bring up as a straw man!
But hey, last time I was told I'm just blinded by hatred and if you run out of arguments at least there's always Schalke to bring up as a straw man!
@do.ob has a point though. If you ignore the insanely well funded vanity projects of Chelsea, Man City, and PSG, are there really any clubs that have actually benefitted from their investors? At a stretch you could argue one club or another might have become more professional in their business dealings, but that's not a development that necessarily requires an investor. Maybe this would be a good idea for a separate thread if it doesn't exist already.
Lots of clubs have suffered under bad ownership and investors, Valencia for instance. Others were already big clubs and you could argue their subsequent successes are not the result of their owners, or rather they could have achieved those without them. I don't know enough about this, but maybe Leeds, Wolves and Leicester are counterexamples? All of them have a glass ceiling too though, and in the case of Leicester their growth in the past years seems more the result of shrewd squad building and good coaches than an influx of cash.
You mean sponsors/partners of the league itself? Why do you think they support the league? To buy add space!? More viewers = more advertising value. Less plastic = more viewers!? Leaving aside that plastic clubs being a net gain in quality is a disputable point: sponsors care about head counts, not about the football.
I don't begrudge clubs who try to earn themselves money, I have no problem with Hertha's recent attempts, I would even welcome them, if they weren't so poorly executed. This is about a group of clubs playing by different rules, while also taking solidarity funds from the clubs that don't.
It absolutely matters for your level of engagement if you can just consume the original "content" or mingle with the locals on message boards rather than consuming everything through the filter of translation. Take Christian Streich as an example, you think someone who doesn't speak German appreciates him the same way as someone who does? All the anecdotes and drama get sterilized if you only experience them through a monotonous translator. And besides more than half of the problem is that others got to these markets and established themselves there first. It's not a level playing field anymore, German clubs have to try to catch up from a severe disadvantage.
It should be pretty easy to spot clubs who made it to a level that could challenge Bayern, no? If you can't see them, then maybe they don't exist?
Leverkusen and Leipzig are sucessful in the sense that they (used to) have a subscription on top 4/6. The initial point of discussion was to get teams to challenge Bayern. In that respect they are pretty hopeless.
Honestly if it was just Leipzig it wouldn't be so bad. They represent the East, through their global feeder club network they bring a lot of interesting talents into the league and they might actually be able to fill their stadium. But the problem is that it's not just them, it's also Hoffenheim, Wolfsburg, Leverkusen and whoever else is lurking in the lower divisions.
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Are Leverkusen and Wolfsburg even really counterexamples to 50+1 in that sense? Looking at other European leagues, the companies behind these two clubs aren't the type of investor you will get if this rule didn't exist. These two clubs are owned by their companies, but I don't actually feel they're that relevant to this discussion, because at the end of the day the more I think about it VW's and Bayer's involvement and ambition doesn't go beyond a disproportionate sponsorship. The same applies to Leipzig to an extent. The difference being that they're not historically tied to the club in the way that the other two are.
What other clubs exist where the owners are essentially the main sponsors, be it shirt or stadium etc? I don't think Man City and Etihad are comparable, as that's essentially a construct to get around FFP rules. Marketing isn't the main objective there.
Wow, just wow.
It's a rather young project, which is why it doesn't have great sponsorship numbers at the moment. Leipzig averages ~40.000 viewers per game at home, which means the stadium is almost always sold out and as far as I know, tv viewer numbers are pretty good as well. Leipzig is a big and well developed city, progressive and definitely has a great pull for many people. It can only go up for them. RBs project is a huge success so far, I don't think anyone could deny that. Who's #2 nowadays? I think it has to be RB.
It does matter quite a bit, I think. Which is why La Liga is such a huge magnet for spanish speaking players from abroad. The "access" (can't translate it properly from german to english) is so much easier, if you understand the language. It makes for a much easier connection.
That's precisely what I said. The league sponsors want an advertising platform. They live with sharing it with the shirt sponsors etc. It doesn't matter to them in which relation they're to the club.
So you believe the Bundesliga had as much followers if the football was duller and the teams would be even worse internationally? There's no way we would've got to 4 CL spots without the plastic clubs. There would be less talent in the league and in the national team. You're being very close minded.
Also, Leverkusen and Leipzig are usually still in the top 10 regarding audience sizes. And that's in spite of the ridiculous model that's behind these quotas.
That's just hypocrisy. Basically you're saying it's okay to raise money but only if you're already a big club. That's the kind of protectionism that's the line of thought behind the Super League, like it or not. You want an open competition? Well, hello then, we're part of it, like it or not. This isn't a democracy, this is sport.
True. I guess that's why they're not even attempting?
What it proves is that investors enable a club to go up a level or two. That's how ventures work - you identify a potential and the investor helps you utilizing these potentials much, much earlier than it would've been possible through organic growth. Dortmund is bad example due to them being at the stock market but in general, an investor could've accelerated their rise by a considerable margin. An investor could help them to start ventures in Asia, America etc. to strengthen their brand and increase their commercial revenues for instance. This isn't some super complicated dynamic that would have to be proven by examples, it's just the logical consequence as it's practiced in thousands of other industries. Investors accelerate growth and that's exactly what such clubs need to challenge Bayern. Sustainable growth is nice and all but if you need to catch up it's about speed and as long as Bayern is growing at a similar rate, they won't get close.
No, the problem is that clubs operating at a much larger budget are utilizing it terribly. Leverkusen would struggle to make the ECL and Hoffenheim would struggle to make the Bundesliga if Schalke, Hamburg and co. weren't complete underachievers - and that's although they don't have any investors on board.
And that's due to the economic law. What VW and Bayer are investing is limited to what they get in return. Thus Leverkusen will most likely never be able to compete financially with the elite in Germany. That we've been the third most important club during my lifetime in Germany is a testament to how badly run the clubs you're so eagerly protecting are.
It's quite a big assumption to say the football would be duller and the international performances would be worse without these clubs. It's like saying Bayern would be a top 6 club without Lewandowski. If the plastic clubs weren't there someone else would have been in their place to get all that sweet CL money, which they could have used to play better football and be more successful in Europe.
This is not at all what I'm saying. Any club - small or big - can raise as much money as they want. But if you're not abiding by 50+1 you shouldn't get any solidarity treatment.
Clubs can do that under the rules of 50+1, Dortmund and recently Hertha literally raised hundreds of millions. So I guess there really is not a single example that proves 50+1 is the obstacle?
No one is saying that certain big clubs don't make mistakes. It's more about what kind of clubs (and for what reasons) limit the chances of clubs that do good work.
50+1 scares off investors because if they pay huge sums, they want control and power over a club. Which is exactly what 50+1 is intended to prevent. Nonetheless, investors want it.
What it really scares off is Glazer types of investors, who eventually want to siphon money out of the club or people who want to use the club for ulterior motives, such as sports washing. For someone who wants to make a traditional investment, as in: give money, get shares, see those shares grow in value and receive a bite of the operation's profits the doors are wide open. As has been proven by the likes of Bayern, Dortmund and Hertha.
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Just in time for the CL semi final Bayern is back to their favoured starting formation... 
If money was the determining factor, they would have been there. Hamburg, Schalke and the likes didn't fail because they had less money than Leverkusen. You're making this way too easy. I believe you're a very well informed and insightful guy but if your antipathies prevent you from seeing that clubs like Leipzig and Leverkusen have been managed much better than the more established players, then that's quite depressing.
Solidarity treatment? Those clubs are part of the whole product Bundesliga. You can't just see the quotas in isolation as I already depicted. If that was the case, clubs would be better off fighting relegation battles than securing a dull midfield finish since the former generates more attention. In the end clubs are playing for success, not for entertainment. That's exactly, and I mean exactly, the conflict surrounding the ESL.
Of course they can do it. I can also play PlayStation with one hand on the back and probably there are even people very good at it but this doesn't change that doing it severely limits what you're capable of. What you're saying is like suggesting that startups don't need investments because they can as well raise a loan at an investment bank.
Mate, you're contradicting yourself in the same paragraph. If 50 + 1 isn't a competitive disadvantage then being excluded from it isn't a competitive advantage for Leipzig and Leverkusen. You have to choose, you can't just go with one argument in one line and completely change it in the next.
Revenue-wise, Germany currently has three clubs in the top 15, four clubs in the top 20 and three in the top 30 European wide. None of them are Leverkusen or Leipzig. If German clubs were as creative in their management as you're at finding excuses for them, neither us nor Leipzig would play internationally. You don't have to love us but as I said before, it would be sad if you're not able to simply admit that those clubs are better run than the ones you'd prefer seeing at the top.
Good game in Mainz, Bayern terrible in defence, Neuer made a huge mistake, Mainz leading 1-0, a lot is happening.
If you've got an hour, do not hesitate.
If you've got an hour, do not hesitate.
2-0 Mainz
2-0 now. I guess we're not sealing the title today.
Wage expenditure as per DFL release for 18/19:
| Bayern | €356mil |
| Dortmund | €205m |
| Leverkusen | €136m |
| Wolfsburg | €131m |
| Leipzig | €125m |
| ... | ... |
| Gladbach | €98m |
| ... | ... |
| Frankfurt | €92m |
I don't think I have to educate you about transfer spending.
TV money being evenly-ish distributed is nothing other than big clubs giving small clubs money. In the public commonly referred to as the solidarity principle. It's a very good idea when it benefits clubs like Freiburg or Mainz, because it gives them a much needed leg to stand on. But it's a bit absurd, when it supports plastics, who have their parent company to fill that role.
Well clubs are doing it. So I don't know what you are on about. Still waiting for you to list examples from abroad that show what the clubs are missing out on.
Not abiding by 50+1 is an advantage in the sense that it allows clubs to exist whose parent companies spend enough to maintain top four and not a cent more. Which is an advantage over some clubs with much bigger potential, but ultimately something that hurts the league, because this class of clubs will never amount to anything that can challenge Bayern and keeps down clubs that might have a better chance.
Pohjanpalo>Håland
2. Bundesliga with Schalke, Werder and maybe Hamburg could be interesting.
At least Lewandowski still grabbed a goal. 2-1 Mainz.
2-1 win with a xg of 0.9 
Bremen have been soul crushingly boring all season, but used always picked up the necessary points here and there, what happened to die Fischköppe that they suddenly lose every game?
Is it just a relatively harsh run of fixtures?
Bremen are just the new Hamburg aren't they?
Had incredibly exciting teams in the 2000s with Pizzaro, Diego, Ozil etc and were in europe most seasons but last 5-6 years they've just been treading water and basically been crying out to be relegated.
Shame as always liked their kit but horrible run of form they're in and this is opposite to last season when they somehow stayed up. Now they're way out of form and those below are winning and have easier run ins.
Had incredibly exciting teams in the 2000s with Pizzaro, Diego, Ozil etc and were in europe most seasons but last 5-6 years they've just been treading water and basically been crying out to be relegated.
Shame as always liked their kit but horrible run of form they're in and this is opposite to last season when they somehow stayed up. Now they're way out of form and those below are winning and have easier run ins.
Bremen are a much smaller club than Hamburg and they don't seem to have the same chaos within. For some reason they appear to be in serious financial trouble, but they haven't fecked themselves up half as bad as Hamburg.
Berlin could go aswell although they have a decent run in and plenty of games in hand although will be congested finish for them.
Haven't really been following them much but what happened to the Brazilian guy upfront who people were going mad about last season, just a purple patch of form?
I really hope Lewandowski gets to break Muller's record, he truly deserves it after the bs with the Ballon d'Or and missing on a big chance to get to the semi of the CL. We see how great Haaland has been in Germany, and yet Bobby's got 11 more goals in as many games. Just incredible.
Wow Andre Silva with 24 in 28 games.
Was making fun of him a few years back when he was at Sevilla and Milan but that is seriously good. What is it about Frankfurt that gets strikers scoring mass amounts given Jovic and Haller were doing it two seasons ago.
Wonder if he'll start for Portugal at the euros.
Was making fun of him a few years back when he was at Sevilla and Milan but that is seriously good. What is it about Frankfurt that gets strikers scoring mass amounts given Jovic and Haller were doing it two seasons ago.
Wonder if he'll start for Portugal at the euros.