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Author: karyaka
Date: 08-09-2005, 15:19

What is your opinion about the German Bundesliga?
In comparison to the other major leagues the Bundesliga is getting worse and worse, but nobody really knows why.
Why do other leagues have so many teams that can mess with Europe's best teams in UCL and UC and Bundesliga haven't?
In Spain, there are Real, Barca, Valencia, Depor, Villareal, FC Sevilla - all of them possess excellent players.
In Italy, Milan, Juve, Inter, Roma - excellent players, really world class on its best.
In England, ManU, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool.
But in Bundesliga, only FC Bayern can mess with the best of the best.
How is it possible that the teams from Italy, Spain and England (except Chelsea) became so rich - are they all highly depted?
I know from german teams that they don't spend more money than they possess. Only Borussia Dortmund tried to get one of the top clubs before their time had come - and everybody knows how this ended.
So please tell me everything you know about the depts of the big clubs, your opinion about German Bundesliga und why top stars don't want to join Bundesliga.

Author: MichaelCollins
Date: 08-09-2005, 15:30

I feel the Bundesliga is highly underrated. There are quite a few good sides, Bayern obviously but also Shalke, Bremen, Leverkusen, Stuttgart and this year Hamburger look good. Also gutsy underdogs like WOlfsburg and Mainz, and the relegation battle usually goes down to the wire, last season being an exception. the Bundesliga was the first European league I got into, and if pressed for a team to cheer on in it, I would say Stuttgart..who keep messing up on the final day of the season!

But Shalke, Bremen and Stuttgart can only get better, as well as the others I mentioned. I think German football is in a lot better shape than you think.

Author: spoonman
Date: 08-09-2005, 17:17
Edited by: spoonman
at: 08-09-2005, 17:29

Thanks for the kind words, MichaelCollins.

Speaking as both a German and a Bayern fan, I think that the Bundesliga is standing at the crossroads. This season will show where we're going: either up again, so that we can be at eye level with the big three in a few years, or further down.

We had a disastraous European season in 2003/04 and a slightly better but still bad season in 04/05. This year it's do or die. There's our prestige at stake - and also a lot of money. We've got 8 teams in Europe and we need good results. But Mainz are already struggling at the bottom of the Bundesliga table and they will need a miracle to squeeze past Sevilla. Leverkusen, Hertha, and Stuttgart are very inconsistent at the moment. Of course they have to reach the group phase in UEFA Cup (the just have to...) but it's hard to tell what they'll be capable of in those groups.

Hamburg (a.k.a. "HSV" or "Hamburger SV" - but not "Hamburger"

) could well be the positive surprise of the season. They've got some very promising young players, (e.g. Trochowski and Lauth) plus experienced guys like Barbarez, Mahdavikia or Mpenza, and Rafael van der Vaart could become one of the big stars of the league. About Bremen and Schalke I'm not sure at the moment. Both have lost important players, and you can't tell yet if the replacements are really going to fill the gaps.

And Bayern? Well, Bayern could be in for a great season. Felix Magath, the new coach, has won the double in his first season and is now accepted by both the team and the German media. The team is well-coordinated, and there are two important new faces (Ismael and Karimi, Asia's footballer of the year) who seem to blend in very well with the rest of the players. The only potential danger is that the team could depend too much on Roy Makaay's goals. He could miss Bayern's 1st CL match - but then again: Pizarro, Guerrero and Santa Cruz are already waiting in the wings. Bayern are hungry for the Champions League and they should be able to reach at least the semifinals.

As for the financial status of the Bundesliga: It's true that most clubs only spend the money that they actually have. This prevents them from buying players like Milan Baros - Schalke wanted him but they said they couldn't afford him.

There'll be a lot at stake when the TV rights for the next three seasons are negotiated in the coming months. The league currently earns 300 million Euros per season from the domestic market which is a lot less than in France, England, or Spain. They'd like to have 500 millions now. Pay-TV monopolist Premiere is willing to pay this kind of money - but only if highlight programmes on Free-TV are postponed until late Saturday evening or even Sunday morning. There's a lot of discussion going on about this in the German public because the "Sportschau" at around 6pm on Saturday afternoon is kind of a "sacred cow" for many fans. And some sponsors say they don't want the Bundesliga to disappear from Free-TV.

So - as I've said: The Bundesliga is currently standing at the crossroads. I don't really know which way it will go...

Re: German Bundesliga
Author: oribd Date: 09-09-2005, 04:05	I don't get it, isn't it said that German clubs sell more tickets than non-German ones? And if so, isn't this supposed to make them richer?

Author: spoonman
Date: 09-09-2005, 10:12

That's right - last season we had an average attendance of 37,800 which was a new all-time record. And this season this will probably be topped again because of all the new and bigger stadiums. But nowadays TV revenues are more important than gate receipts. Let's say, for example, that German clubs get 50 or 80 million Euros more from the gates than French clubs, but the French league gets 500 or 600 million Euros for TV rights, compared to Germany's 300 million.

Re: German Bundesliga
Author: ignjat63 Date: 09-09-2005, 10:16	So is French league overpayed and German underpayed TV-wise? Or perhaps Malko is right ?

Author: Gauss
Date: 09-09-2005, 11:16

Yes, it's right that the german Bundesliga has larger attendances on average than any other league. But ticketing and catering at the matches gives only between 15% and 20% of the revenues of a Bundesliga team. 35% to 40% are from TV rights, around 25% from sponsoring, and around 10% from merchandising. For the big clubs sponsoring and merchandising might have an even larger proportion. But the most important part of the revenues are TV rights, so better TV deals make richer clubs. And I think there's another important factor: As far as I know a lot of other countries have significantly lower income taxes for football players than Germany, so the clubs are able to pay higher net wages.
This only for an explanation why german clubs aren't the richest.

Being not a Bayern fan I have to slightly disagree with spoonman. IN my opinion the focus is too much on the question of revenues from TV rights. I think there must be ways to improve the quality of the league without increasing the budgets of the clubs. And we already see some success in that direction.
Firstly, there are more and more young talented players who play an important role in many clubs (Mertesacker in Hannover, A. Friedrich in Berlin, Engelhardt in Kaiserslautern, Metzelder in Dortmund, and in future also Borowski in Bremen all are leaders in their teams). We can see it in our very young national team as well.
Secondly, last season was not bad for german clubs in Europe. I would say it was an average year. No outstanding results but most clubs fulfilled the expectations. It was only the impression of almost all teams dropping out of the contest at the same time (end of February / beginning of March) and with performances that were very poor (in those decisive matches).
Thridly, the german fans love the Bundesliga. We have record attendances every year and the public interest seems to be higher than ever.

@ignjat: I don't know. But it seems obvious that much higher amounts for the TV rights can not be refinanced on the german market. That might have something to do with socialisation. The german TV audience expects to be informed about the Bundesliga in free TV and is not willing to pay high prizes to watch football games. Obviously that's different in England, Spain and France.

Author: Malko
Date: 09-09-2005, 14:23

1) The Geman strenght in the seventies, eighties, and early 90s was ther atheltic power compared to italian, spanish, french and portugiese sides . (only England could fight in the same category). So very often, in games vs those teams, the foreign teams played a wonderful football for 60 minutes , and after that, were tired....8especially the french teams9....and germany stroke 1 or 2 goals in the last 30 minutes..........
Nowadays, those teams from France, Italy, Spain,Portugal....are physically as strong as the german teams. The training is much more based on physics as some 20 years ago. besides, they keep there advance of technical playing s the german teams, and so, mostly of the times, they are the winner........germany was too long faithful in the "deutsche Tugenden". The others have those "Tugenden" too now.......they are not enough anymore.......

2) Concerning the attendance, it's like sponnman says, just 1/10 from the surplus, that other leagues get from TV-Rights. One thing is clear: A league is worth on TV-Rights just what the TV-Stations are willing to pay. germany has one bif problem: too much football of German league is shown in free-Tv, and as long as this is true, the Pay-TV will not pay the same amounts than in France or in England. Now, there is another problem. The german teams get most money from theit sponsors. If Bundesliga is no more in free-.TV, I am not sure that those sponsors want to pay the same amounts......

Author: spoonman
Date: 09-09-2005, 15:18
Edited by: spoonman
at: 09-09-2005, 15:22

I wouldn't be so sure about the Germans generally losing their advantage in physical strength. We saw a beautiful example of the "deutsche Tugenden" a few weeks ago when Hamburg won the Intertoto final against Valencia who were clearly the favourites.

Talking about TV rights: Of course the sponsors will pay a little less when they reach fewer people via Free-TV but this will not eat up the surplus in Pay-TV revenues.

And the Bundesliga will stay on Free-TV. The question is: When will the first highlights programme be shown and how long will it be? My prediction is that the "Sportschau" will be shortened and moved from 18:10 to 18:30 or 18:40. And there will only be five or six matches in it, instead of seven. This may not look like a big change but it's a step towards more "exclusiveness" for Pay-TV, and it's still acceptable for the general public. TV revenues would rise without anybody being the loser.

Author: Malko
Date: 09-09-2005, 15:59

Wel as long as Bundesliga is in Free-TV, they can never have the same money as France or England.......it will be a choice, but this choice must be assumed.

What i wanted to say concerning the physical strengh is that now the players from France, portugal etc.. are also athlets. platini, Tigana, Giresse and Cie were very good football-players, but not athlets as Thuram, zidane and Makelele are.....