By Nicole Semer
An active observation of a Bundesliga match
Sunday lunchtime: football. You can hear what the coaches are shouting at their teams. Grumpy pensioners donning flat caps sit in the stands; slim, twelve-year-old girls wearing football strips line the pitch. In one corner, a small huddle of people with two flags – these are the away supporters. Homemade cake and coffee in plastic cups are on sale for two euros fifty. This is the face of Bundesliga football in Germany. Women's football that is; far removed from the millions of spectators that – week in, week out – march to the ultramodern arenas located on the edges of cities or gather in football pubs.
The average gate in the 2010/2011 season was 836. Only four out of twelve clubs have an average gate of over 1,000 spectators per home game. On top of the league's big three, the traditional women's football clubs 1. FFC Frankfurt, Turbine Potsdam and FCR 2001 Duisburg, VfL Wolfsburg became only the fourth club to record such a gate – perhaps benefiting from being a World Cup venue. As you can see, in women's football, the sights are set somewhat lower: "If every club could have an average gate of 1,000, that would be a massive step forwards for the league" – these are the words of Claudia von Lanken, who is in charge of team management and communications in women's football at Hamburger Sport-Verein (HSV). The HSV ladies, who finished fourth in the season that has just ended, play in front of an average crowd of around 350, something which Lanken is "definitely not happy" about.
60 percent of those watching women's football are men
Anyone assuming that the majority of the spectators watching women on the pitch are women will probably be somewhat taken aback if they were to attend a match. A marketing study conducted in 2009 found that the percentage of women to men in the stands was 60 to 40% - with men accounting for the 60%. By comparison: the percentage of women attending a men's Bundesliga match can be expected to range between 25 and 30%. Thus, whilst in women's football, gender distribution in the stands is not turned on its head, there is nevertheless a wider demographic spread. This is reflected in studies on this subject as well as the feedback provided by those concerned: middle-aged men and young girls are the most prominent age groups.
This is also the view held by Florian Schwarz, who coordinates amateur and club affairs at Werder Bremen and is therefore also responsible for women's football at the club. "A lot of girls come along who themselves play and use the opportunity to watch a better class of football." The club's women's football department was not founded until 2007, and the women play in the 2nd Bundesliga in front of an average gate of 150. The team also has a fan club which bears the very unpretentious name of "1st Official Werder Bremen Women's Football Fan Club", which shortens to 1. OFFC and mainly consists of men aged between 30 and 50 and whose website does not look too much different from any longer-established men's football fan club.
A question of image: honest and likeable
The feel conveyed by women's football in Germany already resembles some of the aspects of the earlier men's game. The football isn't played in high-tech arenas, and there are no extensive security checks at the turnstiles. The players on the pitch are also in the throes of learning another "real" job" and not all of them can live from playing this sport, and most definitely can't once their football career comes to an end. These are factors that, for some fans, are the decisive difference between women's and men's football. As Claudia von Lanken puts it: "We also have spectators who have turned their backs on the well-paid men's game who find women's football good because they see it as an honest sport." A male fan strikes a similar tone in an interview with 11freunde magazine in which he explains why he switched from Union Berlin to Potsdam: "Of course, I was sceptical at the beginning, but I wanted to see how women played the game. But I found it to be great, attractive football, and even the atmosphere in the stadium was very intimate, totally different from what you encounter at a men's match. I thought it was brilliant, and I instantly felt really at home."
Another positive: women footballers are, by comparison, far less ‘aloof’ than their male counterparts and less insulated from their fans. Even born-and-bred capped women internationals such as Kim Kulig of HSV can be seen lining the pitch. Says Claudia von Lanken: "Right after Germany's success in the EURO 2009 especially, we noticed that suddenly more people were turning up because of her. We have a lot of girls interested in women’s football and who think it's great to see the players up close."
Growth at the top
Among the comparably high percentage of young female spectators who also play actively, there is an assumption that this is the result of a rise in popularity of girls' and women's football at grass roots level. This phenomenon and, indeed, the overall development of women's football in Germany fall into one and the same category: the basis for their success starts at the very top, namely through the national team: winning the European title on home soil in 1989 not only brought the players the reward of a much-cited coffee set but, for the first time, major television coverage. A few months later, the German football association, DFB, decided to initiate a twin-track Bundesliga. Winning the World Cup in 2003 and 2007 also produced true stars in Birgit Prinz, Nia Künzer, Nadine Angerer and Fatmire Bajramaj, with advertising for the national team's home games meanwhile proving to be very successful. The friendly against Brazil in Frankfurt in April 2009 drew a crowd of 44,825 – a new record for women's football.
It can therefore be said that there have been successful developments at the top of the game in terms of attendance and – not least of all as a result of the DFB stepping up its commitment to the women's game, guided by the football association’s president Theo Zwanziger, – an increase in active players at the grass roots level. The day-to-day business of the league continues to develop less vigorously, however. A key role here is played by the media. It would appear that only a certain degree of attention can be afforded to women’s football and that this concentrates on the national team. Apart from individual events such as internationals or tournaments, media coverage on the women's game is very poor.
Has the potential been fully tapped?
There are still no hard and fast answers as to how to continually attract more male and female supporters to attend matches. Traditional women's football clubs, such as Turbine Potsdam or 1. FFC Frankfurt, have come a very long way in terms of their professionalisation. This can also be seen in their fan support and the atmosphere in the stadium. In order for players from the men’s Bundesliga to become more engaged, the development of a women’s team has not yet resulted in an increase in the fan base. It is still unclear what exactly draws spectators to women's football, whether any differences actually exist here between it and men's football or whether elements of fan culture in the men's game do indeed carry over to the women's game to a smaller and, in a positive context, unprofessional extent.
In the run-up, the 2011 Women’s World Cup is repeatedly being built up as an event that women's football in Germany hopes will give it further impetus. A few months before the tournament kicks off, Bernd Schröder, the long-time coach of current national champions Turbine Potsdam, who also coached during the GDR era, put into perspective these hopes, which many clubs share. In an interview given to football magazine kicker at the end of February 2011, he declared that women's football in Germany had ‘reached its limit’, that a major boom in the aftermath of the World Cup was not to be expected: "Women's football has established itself. We have achieved a lot, but we shouldn't get carried away with possibilities that are illusory."
Literature:
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Fechtig, Beate: Frauen und Fußball (Women and Football). Dortmund: edition ebersbach 1995. (Unfortunately only available second-hand).
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Galczynski, Ronny: Frauenfußball von A-Z. Das Lexikon für den deutschen Frauenfußball (A-Z of Women's Football. A dictionary of women's football in Germany). Hannover: Humboldt-Verlag 2010.
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Hennies, Rainer, Meuren, Daniel (editors.): Frauenfußball. Der lange Weg zur Anerkennung. (Women's Football. The long journey towards recognition.) Göttingen: Die Werkstatt 2009.
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Radiate Experience GmbH (editor): Affinitiy Tracer Frauenfußball 09. (Affinity Tracer of Women's Football 09.) Frankfurt am Main: Eigenverlag 2009.
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Sinning, Silke, (editor). Mädchen- und Frauenfußball – Spannende Entwicklungen einer attraktiven Sportart. (Girls' and Women's Football - Exciting developments in an attractive sport.) Wiesbaden: Landeszentrale für politische Bildung (in the pipeline).
GENDER KICKS 2011
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