STEFAN MENNERICH left a Munich-based newspaper in '97 to head the development of Bayern Munich's website. When he joined the Bundesliga champions, the digital revolution was still in its infancy. Now, almost 20 years later, Mennerich has become an integral part of Bayern's plans to increase its worldwide appeal and commercial reach. The director of media rights, new media and IT spoke with SBD Global about the early days, working with external media, staying true to the club's roots and the future of digitalization.
On his start at Bayern Munich...
Stefan Mennerich: When I joined Bayern Munich I worked for the press department. I was put in charge of the website, which wasn’t very big back then. However, it developed and developed, and now there are several departments under my supervision. There’s the IT department, social media department, TV department, web department, which includes our editors, web development department and the kids club. So there are six departments now with six department heads. This is what it has evolved into.
On the current media landscape...
Mennerich: In my opinion it’s like that -- there are three stakeholders around a football club like Bayern Munich. There’s the classic external press. They still have their work to do as they investigate, criticize, write comments, which we cannot do, and so on. There’s a second group, these are the rights holders like Sky, for example, or ARD and ZDF. They have the rights to broadcast the matches and they can reach the people via their rights, which they've bought. So they have their field that they can act in. And the third group is the clubs themselves. They can deliver branded content, behind the scenes stuff and so on. I think because there is digitalization in our world, it’s normal that there are three groups now. The rights holders, classic press and the club itself, and I think they can work together. For example if we film our press conferences or training sessions, we provide that material to TV stations free-of-charge, so they don’t have to attend. Or for international media if they send us their questions, we try to conduct the interview with the player and then send it back. I think we can and we do work together. There doesn’t have to be a tension because everyone has its own area where they can act in.
There can be and there are some areas that are overlapping. But there’s no tension up to now. We give them content, we give them footage from what we are doing here and sure, if they could have the exclusive interview they would do that. However, I think most leagues, such as the NBA, NFL, Premier League and others, have much more restrictions in terms of access than we do it. We have daily press conferences for everybody; we deliver our material; and we do not just play it on our platforms.
On what type of media rights clubs can own...
Mennerich: It’s a big booklet in which the rights are defined. Where should I start? We have the rights to use our match footage after the match -- in the Bundesliga directly after the final whistle; in the Champions League starting at midnight after the match. We have the rights to have our own TV show, a club-dedicated TV show like "Bayern Munich Magazine" or something like that. We have the right to make a worldwide TV show after complying with certain rules. Only 50% of the magazine can be UEFA footage, the other half has to be league footage or branded content or something like that. We have certain rights, radio rights like our web radio where we can provide live coverage of our matches. We also can produce our own club DVDs. So there are certain rights we have, and it was our aim not to damage the central rights -- the live rights -- but to have the possibility to bring our brand to our fans through our media.
On satisfying local traditions and global needs...
Mennerich: Bayern Munich is very much focused, and I think more so than all the other top clubs, on its Bavarian roots. You see it in the fact that we have a Bavarian-language website because we want to show our fans that these are still the roots of Bayern Munich. Bavaria is where we come from. Our slogan “Mia san mia” (“We are who we are”) is Bavarian. Every match day, we pick up 30 fans from around Bavaria with a bus and bring them to the Allianz Arena. Our players visit all our fan clubs in Bavaria. We try to make this sometimes difficult balancing act of having one foot out in the world and the other in Bavaria, true to our roots work. We have to respect both fan groups, the international and the Bavarian one, but our roots will always be in Bavaria. We are a Bavarian football club that reaches out to the world. We have our own editor in New York. He produces tailor-made content for the U.S. on a daily basis. If you click on our U.S. website, you’ll find other content than on our German website. Not just translated, but original content. We also produce our own TV show for China. We have a Chinese spokesman here, and he creates a Chinese TV show for our social media channels on Tencent and Sina Weibo. We will have our own Chinese website in the future, which will be edited from within China. We will have Chinese editors and so on. We try to produce custom-made content in order to reach people, not just with translated content but with content that is especially made for the individual focus market. We are in talks with different platforms, TV stations and web companies in order to exchange content and reach out to more people. We can do this directly as long as no league match content is involved.
On the future of digitalization and its impact on football clubs...
Mennerich: In five years the development will lead all clubs and maybe most of the companies in the world to one point. They have to accept that the world is digital. It’s not one department within a company, which is digital, but the whole company because the whole world is digital. All the business structure, not just IT or the website, but like in our case ticketing, merchandising, sponsorships, simply everything. It’s the only bridge between Munich, where we are, and our fans, which are around the world. We can use this digital bridge to go to the fans and give them the possibility to visit us. So the whole company has to be as digitalized as the world itself in order to be able to mirror the expectations of the people around the world; to give them the service they expect; and to be prepared to face the ongoing digitalization. I always say, "We will never reach our goal, but we have to be on the right path pursuing it. But we will not reach it because digitalization is faster than we are." We we have to be on the right track; we have to be fast; and we have to look right and left to see what the developments are. We have to be on this path toward digitalization every day, but we’ll never reach it because it's unattainable.
Hangin' With runs each Friday in SBD Global.
