RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim Likely Enjoy Matches in Empty Stadiums

Now that the Bundesliga's back in action, FC Bayern is almost in position to wrap up their eighth straight league championship.

Full marks to them, of course, but it does get rather stale watching them do it season after season with only the usual spurts of challenge coming from Borussia Dortmund.

However, the last time that upset the natural order was when BVB claimed back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2012. Otherwise, each season is just the German Groundhog Day.

 

One would think German fans would welcome another contender arising from the hinterlands to disrupt Bavaria's Red dynasty.

One would be wrong.

There's a club that spent eight years coming outta nowhere to do just that, and Bundesliga fans are hating them for it.

In 2009, little SSV Markranstädt was harmlessly ensconced in the German pyramid's fifth division, representing a 15,000-strong suburb 11km southwest of Leipzig in Saxony.

Then, it was taken over by the Austrian reboot-your-brain powerhouse, Red Bull. The club was rebranded as Rasenballsport Leipzig, which just sounds sneaky-evasive:

• The first word translates to lawn ball sports, and it just so happens
• That ill-fitting moniker can be abbreviated to RB, which turns the club's name into
• RB Leipzig.

Kinda like walking into German football through the back door.

 

German football doesn't take kindly to kajillionaire investors strolling into a club and pouring shiploads of cash into it, a là Paris St-Germain or any number of Premiership sides.

UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations aren't enough to keep German football pure in the eyes of protective traditionalists, so it also has a 50+1 rule in place so clubs hold the majority of their voting rights, thus blocking outside investors from controlling them.

Specifically:

• Club members must hold 50% of the shares plus 1 share more, or
• An investor must be involved with the club for at least 20 years.

The latter is how Wolfsburg (Volkswagen) and Bayer Leverkusen (Bayer AG) -- longstanding sides originally organized by their companies' work forces -- qualified for a Bundesliga license under this policy.

RB Leipzig cut a corner in the former.

 

In 2009, SSV Markranstädt suddenly had 17 paying members as opposed to, for example, BVB's 170,000 or FC Bayern's 300,000. By some sorta coincidence, they all happened to be Red Bull employees. Whereas annual membership dues for the likes of BVB and FC Bayern hover around €60, RB Leipzig's are a more exclusive €1000. It'd be no surprise if those membership fees are subsidized.

Voilà! The company thus owned and controlled a licensed fifth-division side that steadily rose to become a Bundesliga power, the only former East German side to do so.

That sorta move may have been considered sweet and cool back in the day when Elton John bought control of his childhood-favorite Watford Hornets and fueled their rise from the fourth division to the first.

The Germans clearly don't think that way.

The hell of it is, the Red Bulls don't use their financial firepower to go big in the transfer market, the usual tactic that turns off so many traditionalists. Instead, they build from within, developing young talent under the tutelage of creative managers and coaches.

They're exciting to watch.

 

German fans, though, can't get over the chicanery of their beginnings. As such, to this day, not a road match goes by without some sorta demonstration protesting their very existence.

In so doing, the Red Bulls wrested the title of most hated team in Germany from TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.

Die Kraichgauer -- they're from the Kraichgau region in Baden-Württemburg -- are based in a village that consists of only 3000 citizens, which is even more absurd than Green Bay having a franchise in the NFL.

 

Like Elton John, though, Hoffenheim has a lifelong fan who made good in the world.

That'd be Dietmar Hopp, founder and big dog at the enterprise software giant SAP. Dude's literally a rags-to-riches story, and he loves to spread his wealth around.

This includes the town's Village XI, of which he now owns 96% of the shares. This is possible under the 50+1 rule because he's been a supporter for much longer than the 20-year minimum.

Hoffenheim's only 33km from Sinsheim -- population 35,000 -- which is where Hopp sunk over €100 to build the snazzy Rhein-Neckar-Arena. This was after, of course, Hopp's resources morphed the club that began as an eighth-division amateur club from a fifth-division pro outfit into a Bundesliga dynamo.

 

Like the Red Bulls, this side is also exciting to watch.

However, besides earning a Champions League berth in 2018, they're still the scourge of other German fans. In fact, the local joke is RB Leipzig robbed them of the title as the nation's most hated team.

It's crazy. How can one despise a club where a lifelong supporter with a heartwarming history as a philanthropist returns to direct it to success?

Is it the privately-financed stadium? Or is it simply jealousy?

 

If there's a logical objection to how RB Leipzig does business, it's that Red Bull wedged its way into the Bundesliga to help promote its products. Why that's different from selling ads on a side's kits is for others to argue.

But Hoffenheim is not a rich OG's playtoy or corporate PR vehicle. There's a well-established bond between club and benefactor. As noted, other teams should be so lucky.

 

The remainder of the Bundesliga season, though, gives them both a break from the abuse they endure on the road. Maybe the empty grounds will offer more viewers an opportunity to actually watch them instead of spending all their time jeering and chanting insults.

Both sides are building their organizations from the inside and for the long haul. Both are worth seeing in action. And someday, one or both will overtake the Bundesliga's perpetual champions, which may even add more season-end's excitement than the usual battles for Europe and top-tier survival.

In other words, sooner or later, RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim won't be jeered. They'll be copied.