“Hate is a strong word, but it fits”–Alligatoah, Hass

The Goethe Institut’s C2 exam is a lot harder than the practice test online would lead you to believe. I’ve been speaking and learning German for over a decade, so I figured it would be no big deal. Instead, as the test entered the final stretch—the speaking section—I was nervous and worried I’d failed. So, when given a prompt to discuss the merits of globalization, I decided to go all-out on a topic I am very familiar with: my hatred for the RB sports conglomerate.

My interlocutor, charged with debating me, put forward the standard counterargument: that the economic reality of modern soccer justified what was ultimately a legal move that other clubs simply weren’t brave enough to take. He mentioned its potential for Schalke which, as we continued our discussion after the test, it transpired he was a fan of. My only reply was that it was better to spend a few years soul searching in the 2. Bundesliga, than selling that soul to stay in the first. He remarked that, given my Union jersey, he expected exactly that argument (I wore the jersey for luck; turns out it worked and I passed).

Of course, this is an all-too-common opinion, expressed by so many when I talk to them about it. It’s RB’s money, there’s no prohibition against it, so why should they be stopped? Why shouldn’t others copy? On the surface, it’s a hard logic to argue with: if you and I love soccer and started a club tomorrow, why should we be faulted for investing in its success, and why should we be forced to adhere to the 50+1 rule when we’re the ones essentially providing the financing?

Because the argument is so widely accepted, it’s worth going into great detail as to why it is absolutely, totally misguided. Certainly, in the modern sports industry, where fans are reduced to mere consumers and the social meaning is stripped away from what has increasingly become an entertainment product, something like RB and its nefarious tentacles can seem normal, even desirable as an innovative business strategy. The logic, looked at in a vacuum, is hard to disagree with.

But looked at in the context of modern German soccer, it’s clear why it is so flawed: it conflates—exactly as RB wants it—equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. To go back to the earlier example where we founded a club, there in fact is nothing wrong with it at the start. After all, it would be insane to stop a small group of engaged fans from starting their own club in the lower leagues and accepting corporate money to make it financially feasible. This stuff happens all the time. What RB is arguing is that because this initial distribution is fair, then everything that comes after must also be fair.

But it isn’t. Though RB doesn’t want to admit it, their success is built on many, many other things, from actual fans to the quality of other teams in the Bundesliga—RB’s Salzburg department, which plays in the Austrian league, isn’t as successful on an international level. Besides that, their financial shenanigans—like this debt-equity swap, which, as someone with a financial background, I can tell you is some absolute not-at-all-arm’s-length chicanery—allow them to put a finger on the scale that actually hurts others.  

It’s is the soccer equivalent of “dumping”, or flooding the market with money until your competitors drown. It’s a widely recognized anticompetitive practice: it’s the only way ridesharing and food delivery companies will ever make a buck, and it’s one of the U.S. Trade Representative’s favorite talking points in trade negotiations. These practices alone would be damning, but hey, if RB recognized that they have some kind of broader responsibility to society, they might be redeemed, right?

Wrong. RB goes out of its way to disenfranchise and actively shit on its own fans. Of course, their protests against the authoritarian management of a club they chose to support (soccer in Leipzig is still Chemie and Lok) fall under the category of “play stupid games, win stupid prizes”. Some level of democracy is also useful in preventing systematic abuse like punching children in the face to make RB scarves. Even other wildly commercialized clubs like Bayern, Wolfsburg, and Leverkusen have realized this and at least acknowledged some responsibility to fans (and thus society) via memberships. Not Leipzig. The financial and administrative foundation of their success is built on an inability of anyone, anywhere, to say “no”.  

I could go on forever, but I’ll sum this part of my argument up like this: it is representative of a larger problem in our society, where those who have power and resources assume that these are justified, and that anything resulting from them is itself also justified (even if both of these things can be shown to be false). RB may make the Bundesliga “richer” and more “competitive”, but they’re taking all of the gains. With the help of every other team in the league, they’ve found $20, and are keeping $19 for themselves while everyone else splits a dollar. Better off? Marginally at best. Fair? Absolutely not. Maybe if they weren’t there, we’d only find $15, but at least we’d split it more fairly and everyone would benefit, not just the powerful.

But I don’t want to fight them on economic grounds. Where I really want to fight them is on cultural grounds. German soccer is unique in the world in combining a high level of play with significant fan engagement. Sometimes it’s challenging, but it’s always fun. In fact, you could go so far as to say it makes it a uniquely German cultural product. I certainly do.

And that’s really where my issue with RB lies. It’s the same game, and the same league, but with way less meaning. By eliminating the values of fair play, democracy, and social engagement that allow Germany’s soccer culture to flourish and be the cultural good it clearly is, they destroy one of the few universal forums left to us in an increasingly atomized and polarized society. And you know what? Having that forum sometimes leads to uncomfortable scenarios, but at least by giving us shared meaning, it provides a valuable space of understanding, solidarity, and compromise that few institutions still do. And, importantly, it belongs to us.

Let’s have quick thought experiment: every team runs on the RB model. There will still be fans in the stadium. There will still be storylines. There will still be a league. Hell, it might even be more competitive. It looks like there’s nothing wrong with this, but it doesn’t consider what we’d have to give up to get there. The Red-Bullshitization of the league in this example would be nothing less than replacing Beethoven with Kidz Bop. Seriously, RB is Kidz Bop: puerile shit stripped of anything approaching raw meaning, and in doing so explicitly meant to sell better to unthinking neophytes.

Hate is a strong word, and I absolutely mean it here. The opposite of hate is not love, but apathy, and it’s true that hate and love share a lot in common. A book about the only other team I deeply care about, UNC basketball, has the following title, referring to our rivalry with Duke: “to hate like this is to be happy forever”. I share this sentiment about RB. I hate them to better understand why I love what I love, but unlike with d00k, who I recognize as a rival worthy of measuring our strength against (much like Hertha), I really would do a happy dance if RB fucked off into oblivion.

Like all cultural products, soccer needs to make money. I’ve got no problem with that. But I resent the total commercialization of culture; it destroys the societal meaning that these times so desperately call for. RB goes overboard with this, from their corporate subsidies to their tentacles in leagues across the world (another competitive distortion: imagine a completely normal club opening an overseas branch!) So that’s why I fight the conglomerate whenever and wherever I can, unapologetically. I’m flirting with being banned from a bar in Mobile, AL (see pictures) because I “improved” one of their RBNY jerseys. I hate the bastards, completely and totally. And you know what? It’s great. Because I know that I’m part of something bigger than myself. RB sympathizers are just a sub-heading on an income statement.

So no matter how today’s game goes, I’m not going to stop advocating for the tolerance, fairness, and solidarity that I’ve learned through Union. It’s one of the things I cherish most about my connection with the club, and it’s exactly why this group was formed: to proselytize these values in a place that doesn’t know better than to accept the RB model. It’s like the time the ABInBev executive told my class: “people prefer Budweiser”. But what he failed to add was, it’s because they don’t know better. Union taught me better, and I, in turn, want to do my part to teach others. So we can have a better, more engaged Verein, absolutely. But also so we can create a space of shared societal meaning. Maybe (probably) that’s a bit pretentious, but now more than ever it’s something worth striving for. With that, I’ll sign off. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s game and regardless of the outcome, I will always be proud of my club. EISERN UNION!