German soccer clubs and their sponsors do not use the marketing potentials of social media services such as Facebook. Compared with the Facebook presence of other European clubs, the top teams of the Bundesliga [national league] lag far behind. While FC Barcelona has gathered 1.3 million fans on its official Facebook page, there are only 20,000 fans on FC Bayern Munich’s largest Facebook page. And it isn’t even run by Bayern, but by private users. Which is why the digital following of the two top clubs is reflected in the score 65:1.
Last weekend we took a comprehensive look at the current Facebook memberships and compared the Facebook presence of the clubs in the 1st Bundesliga [national league] to those of the largest Spanish, English, Italian and French clubs. The result: On the digital playing field, the Spaniards, English and Italians are way ahead. The German clubs lose in national and international reach and therefore in marketing and strength of customer loyalty. Yet there is nothing easier than transforming the emotions of soccer fans from Internet friendship to revenue.
Clubs such as Barcelona, Liverpool and AC Milan use their Facebook pages aggressively for merchandising, ticketing and to procure real – paid – club memberships. No other medium has this ability to communicate directly with millions of fans worldwide. There is huge potential for sponsors, in particular. There are, of course, excellent examples in the offline world of how soccer fans are turned into buyers. From 2003 to 2005, the HypoVereinsbank sold more than 100,000 Bayern Sparcards to FC Bayern fans, amassing €1.7 billion in investment in only two years. Sales effects are becoming the main motivation for investment for more and more sponsors. Companies no longer pay millions so that their logo can flit over the board on Saturday. Coverage and emotions in sports must be transformed into sales. This works quite well on social media platforms. Today, German clubs and their business partners spend a lot of money on the virtual terraces.
Only three clubs in the first Bundesliga even have an official Facebook page (as of February 6, 2010): The HSV (11,000 Facebook fans), Hannover 96 (4,000) and Hertha BSC (2,000). Their sizes are marginal compared with the big European clubs such as Barcelona, Liverpool, Real Madrid (each have more than one million), but also when compared with Chelsea, AC Milan and Paris Saint Germain (each with a few hundred thousand).
At least these three clubs have official websites, giving them online experience. But the largest German clubs by number of members, Bayern Munich and Schalke 04, don’t have anything of their own. Although when one considers the number of actual club members of the FC Bayern Munich – more than 153,000 – then an official Facebook page should, theoretically, become as big as that of Barcelona. The Catalans, with 163,000 members, only have 10,000 more paying club members than Munich’s finest. Our simple model calculation: If you sell every thousandth of the 1.3 million Facebook fans of Bayern an Audi A4, which is quite possible, then that’s 1,300 cars at an average of €35,000 each, resulting in sales of €45.5 million for the Bayern sponsor Audi.
The brand name companies in the USA are even further ahead. For the first time in 23 years, PepsiCo did not have a TV spot last weekend during the broadcast of the finals for the National Football League. Instead, it chose to invest US$20 million in expanding its Facebook page.
Here is a comprehensive comparison of Facebook coverage for German and European football clubs – one click on the graphic and you will see the entire PDF table:
aquarius sales is the new business area of aquarius consulting. Aquarius sales has specialised in increasing the digital potential in marketing and sales processes for our customers.
