Hi Mitmacher,
I listened to last week’s Schlusskonferenz the other day. The main feature about RB Leipzig was excellent! A few thoughts:
@Gnetzer: your main criticism of RB Leipzig’s (RBL’s) approach to Football was that it was mainly sales- and marketing-driven, thus presumably less “nachhaltig" and interested in building ties to the community and developing a fan base; more ruthlessly business-oriented; and quicker to pull the plug and exit a club when it has outlived its usefulness as a marketing investment.
I politely disagree and I want to challenge your, your guests and lots of other people’s views in three crucial respects: first, that RBL is run more like a business than the other, conventional football clubs; second, that there should be a difference between RBL’s and other football clubs’ business conduct; and third, that it is a fair criticism to make that new football clubs like RBL don’t have as devoted a fan base with long-standing traditions as more conventional football clubs.
First, let’s face it. Every major professional football club is run like a businesses and they all are sales-driven, not just RBL. They all are international brands trying to maximise, and capitalise on, their brand value by selling tickets, shirts and sponsorship contracts to achieve their financial targets. I challenge you to name me more than one, maybe two Bundesliga clubs where you get the certain sense that playing football on the weekend is and end in itself and not just a means to make money.
No, the only difference between RBL and many other football clubs is that RBL doesn’t promote its club brand directly, but uses it to promote an energy drink. Schalke 04 wants to sell S04 shirts and merchandise, RBL cans of soda. That’s all.*
Second, as far as Red Bull’s business conduct is concerned, I don’t see why it should be any worse than that of a club like, say, Schalke (who have entered into a deal with Gazprom), BVB (who have sold a significant part of their KGaA stock to outside investors like Signal-Iduna, evonik, and Puma), Bayern (who have regular business interactions with Qatar [for which, btw, I don’t fault them]), or indeed a good few other clubs who travel to Turkey for their winter break training camps.
On the contrary, you could make the case that Red Bull’s business conduct is better than that of most other clubs, because it follows a more conventional approach and is more predictable. RB wants to promote their brand now, not in five or ten years time (when their drink is possibly long forgotten). Accordingly, they need positive attention by a greater public now. Hence, each of their sporting investments has to be successful right away. They want a football club in the first division? Of course they don’t start a club from scratch and slowly move it up through the leagues. Instead, they buy a club that’s already placed higher up in the league system (Markranstaed) or accelerate a club’s climb to first division if necessary (Bragantino). Of course, they enter Formula 1 with a team that is a potential title winner right from the start.
You can extend this to any venue Red Bull turns its attention to, be it extreme sport, trend sport, pop culture or anything else. When Red Bull commits to a business venture, their approach is always as professional as it is comprehensive and focused on promoting their omnipresent brand here and now. Very predictable.
By the same token, Red Bull can’t really afford taking all too many risks with their brand. ‘Red Bull’ the brand is all they have. Should it ever be permanently connected with questionable partnerships (Gazprom, Qatar), or failure (e.g. RBL being relegated) in people’s minds, this would reflect badly on their brand and may lead to a permanent drop in their sales.
Hence, you can rely on Red Bull’s business decisions falling into a defined, narrowly circumscribed area of risk, conventionality and predictability: nothing really far out, nothing really surprising, everything tailored to success here and now. You might not like this area, fair enough, but at least it’s more predictable and not any less ethical than what other clubs are doing (who really toy with the affection of their fans by really taking questionable business decisions).
Third, it is not fair to blame RBL (or TSG Hoffenheim for that matter) for their small fan base. For these clubs, their sporting success precedes their opportunity to establish a devoted fan base by several decades. Give them another thirty or forty years. Should football still exist then, their fan base will be as large and emotionally invested as that of traditional clubs (and let’s hope less violent and morally corrupt).
EDIT: oh, and as far as thin attendance at EL matches and RBL home games in general is concerned, you cannot fault RBL for having no respect for their community and no idea how to really turn ordinary people into fans - and complain about thin home game attendance at the same time. That’s logically inconsistent.
As regards RBL’s community engagement in general, at least they seem to be pretty active in a lot of areas (https://www.dierotenbullen.com/de/klub/gemeinsam-helfen/soziales-engagement.html). Not living in Leipzig, I cannot really assess the quality of these endeavours, but on the surface at least, the picture doesn’t look quite so dire as you portrayed it in the Schlusskonferenz.
In short: yes, Red Bull treats football as a business. Yes, the ultimate goal of Red Bull’s sporting investments is to promote their energy drink. Yes, in the eyes of many a fan, Red Bull creates a soul devouring aesthetic hell of red and blue that spreads like a malignant cancer with every step the take and leaves behind nothing but abject despair, but at least they’re rather straightforward and predictable in what they’re doing and everyone can know what they’re getting in for should they decide to get involved.
Save for the aesthetics, other clubs act just the same, commercialism, business orientation - the lot. Only that their business decisions are really questionable and a sizeable part of their fans rather ruthless and morally depraved. You decide what you like better, but PLEASE folks, stop applying double standards!
P.S. IMHO, RBL will be the main competitor for Bayern going forward, both in terms of sporting and business success, not the BVB. Meet me again in ten years time.
*I think I don’t have to elaborate on the fact that almost all clubs have hived off their main football division into a joint stock company precisely because this allows them to conduct their business affairs professionally and in accordance with international standards (legal, financial, …)