Independent sports journalism will become more and more important in the future, according to Alfred Draxler, the editor-in-chief of Sport Bild. Draxler believes the need will increase as consumers and readers have an increasingly hard time navigating through the media jungle. “There’s no independent club TV,” he said. “You would never watch CDU.tv (a hypothetical TV channel of Germany’s ruling political party) looking for independent news.” His comments came during a panel discussion with the title “How important is ‘Bild’ & Co. still? The clubs arm themselves!” at the SpoBiS conference in Dusseldorf, Germany. The panel also included Bayern Munich board member Andreas Jung and Deutsche Post board member Jürgen Gerdes. Weekly sports magazine Sport Bild, which is part of media company Axel Springer, has made the transition into the digital age and added on-demand Bundesliga broadcast rights to its offering. "We know by now that the moving image is the dominant media form,” Draxler said. “The time when we described a goal in print is over. We have to produce background stories, interviews and so on.” Bild acquired the league's media rights back in ’12 and Draxler said that Axel Springer is looking to retain them during the next rights period, which starts in '17-18.
MORE CONTENT: While agreeing with Draxler on the need for independent journalism, Jung said that media partnerships, which Bayern has signed with MSN, Univision, Goal and Yahoo, are valuable for the club. “The basic goal has to increase the volume of content,” he said. “But at the end of the day, also generating more merchandise sales, increasing the awareness of our partners and our brand in those countries.” He added that being a partner of Bayern Munich means getting closer to the club. Deutsche Post, which is a second-tier platinum partner of the club, is taking advantage of this connection. “Big brands need big partners,” Gerdes said. He added that a common internationalization strategy, which includes a focus on America and Asia, led to the partnership with Bayern. Deutsche Post signed a six-year deal with Bayern in ’14. As the club’s official logistics partner, Deutsche Post helped and advised the club in the creation and launch of its e-commerce website in China in ’15. According to estimates, Gerdes said, 55% of the world’s population will reside in Asia by '25. He said, "It likely would be a mistake to not be active in that market."
Quick Hit:
- Jung, on what a "no-single buyer" rule would mean for the upcoming Bundesliga broadcast rights tender: “You have to look at [Bayern Munich Exec Chair] Karl-Heinz Rummenigge's complete statement. He referred to the DFL's (German Football League) ability to create a competition with its tender. That’s what happened in the U.K. with two channels, which led to the astronomical amount. If that’s the case then the expectation is to break the €1 billion ($1.1B) barrier. … We all hope it happens because we would all profit from it."