Klein on a mission to expand Bundesliga’s reach
Robert Klein tells Bareng-Batho Kortjaas why the South African market is vital for a German brand
He is half Swiss and half English but Robert Klein beats the drum for the Germans. Between speaking at the Africom conference in Cape Town and addressing the Premier Soccer League annual general meeting in Johannesburg, the Bundesliga International CEO sat in a corner of a high-end hotel restaurant to explain his whistle-stop visit to the country.
Why are you looking for a partnership with the PSL?
We presented to the PSL how we’d like to work closer together between the leagues, specifically talking about league structures, club activities. We are also very keen to get Bundesliga teams to come here in the January break. Currently that is not possible because there is a regulation saying no international games could be played then. We would like to find a way to make that possible.
Why is that important?
Football fans like the clubs and the players. If you really want to be able to see the players from the Bundesliga and to really then have a construction where, not just between leagues but between clubs, they are actively talking to one another. If we are able to come down year-in, year-out, maybe even put something in place as a PSLBundesliga Cup on a friendly basis, then I think you can really start interacting with the fans properly and allow these opportunities with the clubs to create a deeper relationship between us.
An annual PSL-Bundesliga Cup?
It is important to state that at the moment we want to start a partnership and nothing is confirmed. Further down the line we would like to develop concepts like this where certainly on an annual basis a Bundesliga team would play against a PSL team. And it could then also morph into a tournament.
Why not, for an example, have a team from Nigeria or Egypt come down and have two PSL teams and then we can do a semifinal, final format. This is the kind of thing we are looking at. But further than that when Werder Bremen came this January they wanted to come again in two months time. But they need to be able to play their friendlies because it is warm-up time for them. The timing is perfect, the flight is easy, you’re sleeping overnight.
The time zone is only just one hour, so basically it’s the same thing. On the back of it, when Werder Bremen were here, as a league we also said we don’t just come here and sell our rights, we want to actually support SA football.
What is your unique selling proposition?
What is unique about the Bundesliga is that we control our whole value chain.
Meaning?
We do all the live productions for our matches. We do all the digital and social content directly, centrally. We do all of our marketing events and PR.
The clubs have become very professional in their set-up. They invest significantly into youth. There is a constant stream of young players coming through them. And they are also doing a lot of activities on the licensing side. We think a knowledge exchange would be beneficial to the PSL. I’m sure in return we also could learn a lot from the PSL.
What can SA accrue from this partnership?
In the long term, the benefit for knowledge exchange with one of the leading leagues in the world, if we can all improve together. And ultimately also think about the players. If there are more active discussions between clubs and the leagues, maybe we can get more South Africans to come and play in the Bundesliga, which from a fan perspective would be very exciting indeed.
What do you know about our football?
I lived here for three years. I watched a lot of the PSL. They’ve got athletic skilful players and I think they could be a very good fit in the Bundesliga.
By quite some margin the Bundesliga boasts the biggest crowd attendance.
You have an average of 43,000 per game and the next closest is the Premier League at 38,000. [Borussia] Dortmund 81,000 are sold out every match and most stadiums are also sold out. We’ve got stadiums from 30,000 to 81,000.
What is the attraction. Why do they sell out week in and week out?
A number of things happened. One was the creation of the DFL in 2001 to professionalise the league massively. And then the World Cup in 2006 was a big thing for Germany. They built these new state-ofthe-art stadiums, made them very familyoriented places. In Germany a lot of the fans are members of their clubs. They feel completely associated not just to the club but to the whole local community. As a result the ties between the fans and the clubs is extremely high. They feel deeply invested.
One of the reasons I believe the ticket price is still so low in the Bundesliga is because of the strong fan base. Everybody understands that we’ve got to grow commercially but not at the expense of the fans and the fans are very much at the centre of the club decisions and as a result you get these incredible atmospheres and it’s like a party every Saturday when there is a home game. Fans are at the centre of what we do. They are so important to the clubs and the league. Therefore it is important to respect them. Ticket prices in Germany is one of those signs.
What are the clubs doing outside of match day to integrate the community and also to interact with them?
The majority of training sessions are open. If the fans want to come and see their stars they can do. There are some limitations on it but that’s the way it is. This authenticity and proximity that the Bundesliga offers is what we call football the way it’s meant to be. Not stars who are untouchable and miles away, but there is a real close interaction. We live that authenticity, the proximity, full stadium, style of football, a technical game but still played at pace, always a mixture of superstars and youth. That’s the kind of combination. We understand what we have and we try and live that day in and day out. I think that would be one of the interesting points of conversation if we have a partnership.
Why is that important?
Bundesliga International was set up two years ago and is focused really on international business. One of the things that we wanted to do in the key territories we didn’t just want to say oh we know there are a lot of football fans there. We wanted to know who our fan is, what is the demographic, what do they like, which teams they like.
It is what we call a fan funnel. SA has 55million people and as we go from left to right, you go from the population right down to sport fan, football fan, Bundesliga fan and in our fan funnel we want to move as many people as we can from the left to the right hand to become Bundesliga fans. We do research every year here, quite extensive. We learn about our fan base, what their team preference is, what’s the demographic.
What has your research told you?
It has told us that we have a strong fan base here. The Bundesliga fans have a high propensity to consume on digital products.
With this info we will work with our partners, teams they would like to see.
Why are telecommunications companies important in your drive to expand the Bundesliga base in SA?
There is a big subscriber base with the telcos. We produce all of our content, video, text heavy and so on. We customise our content. We will understand what the fans want. If you’re a Bayern supporter we’ll deliver different content to Leverkusen or Hoffenheim, or what have you.
Telcos have this possibility and also bandwidth and infrastructure is getting better. Even with video products and so on there’s a possibility to deliver to the end fan. The pay TV sector will be absolutely key. We are currently with StarTimes in the subSahara. Everyone knows of course we were previously with SuperSport. We want to try to find the right mix of partners who we think can help grow the Bundesliga.