Red Bull has rebranded yet another club in its attempt to establish itself as a global football power. Red Bull are the backers behind the rebranding of SSV Markranstädt as RB Leipzig, who will begin play under that name next season in the fifth tier of the German league.
Markranstädt is located a few miles from Leipzig, the largest city in the Saxony state in eastern Germany, and home to a World Cup venue (Central Stadium) in need of a top tier tenant — though Leipzig is a region rich in football history, it has no team above the fourth tier of the German league. Red Bull’s aim is to become the dominant power in east German football through RB Leipzig, and build the club into a Bundesliga force playing at Central Stadium.
Red Bull branding kit
The takeover of Markranstädt will mark Red Bull’s fourth investment in and rebranding of a football club worldwide. Their investments so far have produced mixed results on and off the field. Their first takeover — and erasure of a club’s existing history — came in Austria near the company’s headquarters in Fuschl, where SV Austria Salzburg were rebranded as FC Red Bull Salzburg in 2005 . The takeover and rebranding was the subject of a strong fan protest by the Violet-Whites supporters, who founded a new club, SV Austria Salzburg. Red Bull Salzburg have been successful on the field, last month clinching their second Austrian championship since the takeover.
In 2006, Red Bull took over and rebranded the New York MetroStars as Red Bull New York. Since then, the team have continued their historic mediocrity on the field, having failed to win any silverware. Poor results this season will be of concern to Red Bull ownership ahead of the team’s much delayed move to Red Bull Arena next year. The new stadium looks impressive, a doppelganger of the stadium Red Bull Salzburg recently moved in to. So far, Red Bull New York have failed to win a strong fanbase in America’s largest market, and it’s open to question if the new stadium will prove to be the magic elixir or not.
Red Bull Arena
A lesser known third Red Bull franchise is also located on a third continent: Red Bull Brasil were founded in Sao Paulo in 2007, and have since struggled to advance from the Segunda Divisão Paulista. Red Bull seem to be following in the footsetps of that last move with the takeover of Markranstädt, who have a much lower profile than the two clubs taken over in Salzburg and New York respectively, whilst also allowing them to establish the club under Red Bull auspices outside of the Bundesliga’s tight licensing and regulation procedures.
An attraction of starting smaller is that the relatively weak Markranstädt’s fanbase will find it hard to resist Red Bull, (though some minor graffiti protest has already appeared at the club’s stadium) whose “masterplan” includes pumping in $100M over the next ten years into the club and an aim to reach the Bundesliga within eight years.
In a break from the previous Red Bull franchises, in order to meet future Bundesliga rules on membership ownership (of at least 51% of the club) and on sponsor naming, Red Bull will not own the whole club or name it as Red Bull Markranstädt. Instead, it has been renamed oh-so-subtly as RB Leipzig and the current “members” of the club are reported to all be affiliated to Red Bull. The North German Football Association (NOFV) recently approved the changes. It’s likely that such a blatant skirting of the rules would not have washed had Red Bull taken over a well-known Bundesliga team in the same manner.
The undoubted appeal of Markranstädt to Red Bull is their location and the troubled recent history of football clubs in Saxony that leaves an opening for an ambitious franchise to fill. No club in the region is currently above the fourth tier in the German system, despite the popularity of the sport in a city with a population over 500,000 and the historic links to the game locally. As well as hosting the 2006 World Cup draw and several WC2006 games at Central Stadium (Zentralstadion), Leipzig was the birthplace of the German Football Association (DFB) in 1900.
According to reports in Germany, Red Bull plan to move the club from their current home, the 5,500 capacity Stadion am Bad, to Central Stadium a few miles away from the 2010-11 season on. Central Stadium is an impressive venue built for the 2006 World Cup with a capacity of 45,000 but without a club that can currently come anywhere near to filling the stadium.
Zentralstadion
Red Bull has reserved naming rights for Central Stadium from 2010 on, when the team has (they hope) won promotion to the Regionalliga, the fourth tier in German football. The stadium operating group, led by Michael Kölmel, initiated talks with Red Bull earlier this year, and SSV Markranstädt was determined to be the best choice to take over tenancy of the stadium with Red Bull’s backing.
Central Stadium most recently played host to the now insolvent FC Sachsen Leipzig, a club who only averaged a crowd of around 5,000 in the huge stadium. It is notable that Red Bull considered investment in Sachsen themselves a couple of years ago, but due to early and active resistance from supporters of the existing club, they quickly looked elsewhere (it was the same story with Saxony Fortuna Dusseldorf, another prospective Red Bull target). To avoid large-scale fan resistance, Red Bull and Kölmel settled on smaller but promising prey in nearby Markranstädt.
The only other significant team locally is Lokomotive Leipzig, formerly VFB Leipzig, a team with a proud history but considerable present troubles. VFB won the first national championship in 1903, and under their new name Lokomotive Leipzig, did well in the postwar years with support from the East German regime, managing some notable runs in European competition, including reaching the final of the European Cup Winners Cup in 1987. But the fall of communism brought hard times on Lokomotive (who reverted to their original name, VfB Leipzig) and the club went bankrupt in 2004. Shortly after, the club was refounded by fans as 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig and is now slowly working its way up from the lower reaches of the German pyramid.
The goal, therefore, is wide open for Red Bull in Leipzig to build a powerhouse in Saxony, with a ready-made world class Red Bull-branded stadium available for use and a huge potential fanbase for a top tier team. You probably don’t need a re-branding, but you might want to spice up life by registering with a new operator like Betfair promo code for a £30 free bet. However, whether football supporters in Germany will buy into the rebranded team in any meaningful manner remains to be seen.
Photo credit: Floelz Photography on Flickr.
Red Bull also bought Salzburg’s hockey team EC Salzburg and rebranded them EC Red Bull Salzburg in 2000.
Interesting to hear, Lars — how did that go down? Any protest?
Great article, Tom. It’ll certainly be interesting to see (a) how successful they are and (b) how popular they are.
It does seem strange to think that whole region of Germany is without a decent team of any sort. You can see why Red Bull pounced on Markranstädt.
Thank you Tom for popularizing these important facts and backgrounds of the progressing history of Red Bull’s rebranding of football clubs in the anglophone region. As a local football fan living in Leipzig I can state that local protests have been started and will go on. For RB Leipzig playing against the local traditional clubs FC Sachsen and 1. FC Lok in the next season will be hell.
Tom, i am not sure, but i am assuming it went down better with hockey, because hockey is seen as very Americanized anyway, and there are plenty of hockey clubs in Europe without a proper cultural heritage, especially in central Europe.
To be honest i just think it is completely crazy that a company with really only one product can make so much money. Something tells me that drink doesent cost much to produce. Apart from these team sports, they also own not one, but two Formula 1 racing teams, a NASCAR team, a Brazilian stock car racing team, several youth racing leagues and teams, an entire air race league plus personal sponsorship of many athletes (most of whom will call you “dude”).
one brand I sincerely hate 🙂
The other day I bought four cans of red bull and poured them all into a large empty coke bottle so I didn’t have to drink each can at once. They about half filled the bottle for £4. So a full bottle of red bull would be £8 (around $11 maybe) whereas a bottle of coke here is £1.79. In short, red bull costs about 5 times as much as coke. Which is ridiculous but also explains the success of the company.
True, Sheps. You pay for their marketing so much. It’s not the recipe, they sell it to different companies which then modify it. Thankfully I don’t think they are number one in Polish market any more, outgrown by their own “child”. Anyhow – if there is a club with its history, even if it’s a short one like Metrostars’ or of local importance like Markranstadt – the least they could do is respect it, not even mentioning Austria Salzburg…
I think it will work. If Dietmar Hopp can transform Hoffenheim then Red Bull can do the same at Leipzig.
Red bull – where else than sports. I mean, the drink is supposedly energetic, but it’s nothing more than water packed with glucose and caffeine. Still, an energy drink with “soul” has larger marketing value than a cup of coffee. If Red Bull does what they promise, the club would really be better off.
This is profoundly depressing (as is the continued profitability of Red Bull in general).
The cynicism of the entire plan is quite breath-taking, and one can only hope that they fare even worse on the pitch than the Saxon teams with real fans.
BTW, Tom, there is a rogue “Saxony” in front of Fortuna Duesseldorf in the text. Duesseldorf is in North Rhine Westphalia (and Fortuna were promoted to the 2. Liga this season, so there remains hope for their non-branded future).
Spiegel had an article on this today with some more detail: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/buying-its-way-to-the-bundesliga-red-bull-wants-to-caffeinate-small-soccer-club-a-631450.html
They’ve really chosen their target well this time, a region desperate for a winner even if it’s branded Red Bull, it seems — though the opening paragraph on the protest isn’t followed up very well.
Thanks for the correction, Ursus. I’m glad there is a little hope out there…
Red Bull has a very strong future in this field and they are ready to spend 100s millions in this field .. I have to say I’m supporting them .
Well Martin, some prefer supporting football teams rather than companies. It’s all ok when they just take up sponsoring, but not when they trash club identities just to promote their brand. Destroying a club just to strenghten their own image is real disrespect to the fanbase and hopefully they will not ever try to think about invading our market with this idea.
I guess time will tell if the branding has the exposure they want to get- its at least beeter than being branded by a beer similar alcohol company.
Well Martin, some prefer supporting football teams rather than companies. It’s all ok when they just take up sponsoring, but not when they trash club identities just to promote their brand. Destroying a club just to strenghten their own image is real disrespect to the fanbase and hopefully they will not ever try to think about invading our market with this idea.
I have been travelling around in Europe for a month, and although with the break, there wasn’t much football on my busy programme, I did nevertheless notice some things:-I was in Barcelona when R.D. Espanyol inaugurated their new stadium by winning a 3-0 victory against Liverpool. I have always felt some sympathy for Español for being the “little guys” in Barcelona, and was happy to see them play Click to continue reading…