Analysis of strategic success factors in the internationalization process of professional German football clubs

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Sport - Sport Economics, Sport Management, grade: 1,5, University of applied sciences, Cologne, language: English, abstract: This thesis aims to analyse professional German football clubs and their strategic approaches while internationalizing, providing a profound insight into the topic: "Analysis of strategic success factors in the internationalization process of professional German football clubs".

The primary research question of this work is why, where and when professional German football clubs are entering foreign markets and which strategic processes have to be considered during the internationalization process, furthermore, which are successful? In addition, this study strives toward a better understanding of internationalization strategies of professional German football clubs analysing how they are internally structured as well as which internal and external factors could influence the internationalization?

In order to evaluate the different strategic approaches "strategy profiles" for selected clubs are going to be considered based on structured quantitative interviews and compared as case studies. In this thesis, the research focuses on selected German Bundesliga clubs. Due to their financially weaker situation and lack of international importance, clubs from the Bundesliga 2 will not be considered. The mentioned selected clubs are Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA, FC Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e.V. and VfL Wolfsburg-Fußball GmbH. In addition, in order to analyse the collaboration between the clubs and the German Football Association (DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH), the relationship between the clubs and the DFL will be examined.

For the structured interviews with experts the author of this thesis developed an interviewer administered questionnaire guiding through the different interviews. Each interviewed expert was asked to respond to the same set of questions in a predetermined order. Trying to build a broad opinion profile and to create a better possibility of comparison at a uniform level, interviews with experts from the recently most successful and aspiring German Bundesliga clubs were conducted (Alexander Jobst, Thomas Röttgermann, Benedikt Scholz). Additionally, to analyse the interdependence between the clubs and the DFL an interview with the CEO of the DFL (Christian Seifert) was conducted. Due to the financially weaker situation and lack of international importance, clubs from the Bundesliga 2 were not considered.