When Borussia Dortmund’s Friedhelm Konietzka scored the first ever Bundesliga goal on 24 August 1963, there was one single camera in the stadium. As the game kicked-off a minute early and Konietzka scored only seconds into the game, the cameraman was not ready to capture this historic moment. Back in those days, it was quite common for goals to be left uncaptured. Recording a whole game would have been too costly, so cameramen had to try and choose the right moments to film and catch every goal – sometimes without success. As unimaginable as this sounds today, it shows how technology has evolved and how it changed our way of experiencing the Bundesliga.
Bringing football as it’s meant to be to the world
Football tells some of the most exciting sports stories of our time. Because the Bundesliga understands this basic principle of the football experience, we make a huge effort to deliver the perfect media product for our fans watching around the world. Since 2006, we have controlled the entire value chain in-house – delivering all TV production through our subsidiaries. But it does not stop here. Especially the atmosphere in our world-class stadiums around Germany – which have the highest average attendance globally – distinguishes the Bundesliga from other sports competitions.
Since the late 2000s, we have been capturing this experience through Spidercams, Robo-Cams and drones. We want to give the world an insight into what it feels like to stand amongst the throng of supporters in the ‘yellow wall’ in Dortmund, the largest standing terrace in Europe, or to run onto the pitch next to stars such as Coutinho and Lewandowski in Munich. Capturing this unique atmosphere is at the core of everything we do, facilitated by cutting-edge technologies that help transport the wonders of the game to people everywhere.
Sensible innovation is what we strive for
At the Bundesliga, we are very sensible to only implement meaningful changes, which bring real added value to football fans. The league has changed and adopted novel technological practices over time, but always for the better. When it comes to new technology, my first question is always the same: Will it improve the Bundesliga experience? If not, we are happy to skip a new development and keep researching.
One recent project, which we believe is worth pursuing, saw us introduce 5G technology into a football stadium for the first time. Together with Vodafone we developed a real-time app that makes match data available to the fans in the stadium via AR on a cell phone, allowing them to see numerous real time stats, such as how fast a player is running for example.
In another world first for football, we also tested broadcasting in vertical 9:16 ratio in a full length UHD broadcast production, a perfect fit for smartphone screens and for watching the Bundesliga on the go. Despite such advances in technology, one constant always remains – “Football as it’s meant to be” is our mantra and it is essential that its values are preserved. We will never introduce a technology just for the sake of it – it is always about the sport and our fans.
Staying ahead in innovation means staying ahead in football
Technological innovations are what have provided the resources to develop the Bundesliga from the early days of Friedhelm Konietzka into what it is today: a prospering business, entertaining millions around the world. This story of innovation continues to this day and is gaining more momentum.
I fundamentally believe that our balance between tradition and the uniqueness of the Bundesliga and our mindset to stay curious and open to innovative trends is what sets us apart. Looking back at almost 60 years of Bundesliga history and innovation, I am sure that one day we will look back to this point in time and will be just as amused about the standard of technology as we are today about the standard in 1963. I cannot wait for this moment to come and to find out what the future has in store for us as football fans all around the world.
