Mateschitz does not speak in particular of the energy drink on which his fortune is built, but of the philosophy embodied by his multinational cross-platform and cross-platform company.
“It provides skills, skills, strength for all you want,” added the Austrian, who has created an environment that fosters minds and cutting-edge ideas.
RB Leipzig and head coach Julian Nagelsmann, 33, are an example.
Just ten years ago, they debuted in The Fifth Division of Germany; on Thursday they will play for the first time in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
But it took more than Red Bull to take on the east German club’s task to identify with the country’s elite.
When Nagelsmann’s team beat Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16 games, he did so with a little-known team with no player acquired for more than 20 million pounds.
So how did Red Bull make a regional football game club a true Bundesliga contender (they led champions Bayern Munich to finish third)? What’s for one of the most famous corporations in the world and Leipzig is the most hated club in Germany?
Few Germans were open to the idea that Red Bull’s leader Mateschitz would fund a club when he first joined it in 2006, and initial plans to invest in another Leipzig team, FC Sachsen Leipzig, were rejected through the German football federation, the DFB. .
The fan protests followed when Red Bull explored the acquisitions of St Pauli, 1860 Munich and Fortuna Dusseldorf, before returning to the original plan to win a Leipzig-based team.
The former football scene in Leipzig is complicated, with several clubs formed and dissolved since the founding of the DFB in the city in 1900. The Nazi regime, the communist regime, and Germany’s forthcoming reunification also led to league formats.
FC Lokomotive Leipzig enjoyed good fortune before reunification, losing to Ajax in the 1987 European Cup Winners’ Cup final, but after a replacement call at VfB Leipzig, their relegation from the Bundesliga in 1994 ended with the city’s representation in the German elite.
Until Red Bull purchased the game license for the fifth point SSV Markranstadt.
Before the renowned RB Leipzig began the 2009–10 season, there was a cry in Germany, but it is nothing the company has experienced before.
Many enthusiasts were alienated when Red Bull acquired the most sensible Austrian team SV Austria Salzburg in 2005 and replaced their call to Red Bull Salzburg, as well as the club’s badge and uniform colour.
In Germany, after years of studies and negotiations, they must start from behind and move forward.
When RB Leipzig arrived in the Bundesliga in 2016, the city had been without a more sensible team for 22 years and there had been no former East German team in the department since the relegation of Energie Cottbus in 2009.
This open market is an opportunity.
“He’s smart for the city, smart for the eastern component of Germany,” Guido Schafer told BBC Sport, who has listed RB as a leading journalist in Leipziger Volkszeitung.
“The whole city loves RB Leipzig, apart from the two classic clubs, Chemie and Lok Leipzig, and everyone knows how well such a club is having in town.
“The fan base is also growing. Now, almost every single game is sold with 40,000 players.”
This love for the Red Bull-backed club is not shared throughout the country, and even in its inaugural season, RB Leipzig has faced a backlash from opposition fans.
THE DFB legislation stipulates that German clubs will have to operate according to a “50-1” rule, which means that members, basically enthusiastic, own most of the shares and can influence decisions such as ticket prices.
Rivals RB Leipzig exploited the formula by having only 17 voting members, most of them directly connected to Red Bull, and circumvented a law stipulating that groups deserve not to be named after sponsors by officially calling the RasenBallsport Leipzig club, which translates into LawnBallsport Leipzig.
The RB is known as “Germany’s most hated club” and remains the subject of normal protests by opposition supporters, ranging from the boycott of matches to the arrest of 28 Borussia Dortmund enthusiasts for throwing cans and stones at rival supporters in 2017.
Dislike goes further. Speaking to the first promotion of BBC World Service Leipzig, Dortmund’s executive director Hans-Joachim Watzke described RB as a “club created to increase Red Bull’s revenue,” while this month the German football magazine 11 Freunde refused to occupy the top of the table with Bayern Munich, whose fans sported offensive posters.
But Schafer is convinced that Leipzig and chief Nagelsmann, whom he calls a “genius,” seduce other people with their horny football and intense, fast and urgent play.
“There have been some protests, especially from supporters in Dortmund, Augsburg and the Berlin Union, but in Germany and Europe, respect takes place every day,” he said.
“It’s a very stage for Leipzig and also for football in Germany that are at this point now.”
No doubt the Red Bulls have flown to the most sensible of the pyramid of the German league.
Four promotions allowed RB Leipzig to triumph in the Bundesliga 8 years after his formation.
It probably wouldn’t have been Red Bull’s first foray into football, but it’s just the task with the prospect of making a difference in one of the game’s classic powers.
After obtaining SSV Markranstadt, an Oberliga team a few miles from Leipzig, gave them all the metamorphosis of Red Bull, adding it to a portfolio that now also includes Red Bull Salzburg, New York Red Bulls, Red Bull Brasil and several breeding clubs.
The promotion continued temporarily but, with Mateschitz’s interference and random hiring and layoffs, RB had some time to escape the fourth-tier Northern Regional League. Until Ralf Rangnick arrived.
“All with Ralf Rangnick in 2012,” Schafer says.
Rangnick was recruited through world football director and former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier, who was sold to sign up for the Red Bull assignment after a four-hour meeting with Mateschitz in Salzburg this previous year and the user credited to Sadio Mane, now in Liverpool. . Fixed at Red Bull Salzburg.
Schalke and Hoffenheim’s former boss, Rangnick, has been appointed director of RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg, and successive promotions followed.
Rangnick then went to the bench in 2015 to complete Leipzig’s promotion to the Bundesliga.
“Rangnick is the architect. He’s a wonderful man, he’s done all that,” Schafer continued.
“When he arrived in Leipzig, everything changed. It made the club younger, faster. This is his philosophy and since that day, everything has been the tension of this philosophy.”
Rangnick took the reins twice when Leipzig was among the managers and, after appointing Nagelsmann, had a wider role in assigning Red Bull as head of play and progression until last month.
The 62-year inventory in the adjustment is such that it seemed in a position to sign for European giant AC Milan to rebuild the Serie A club and launch the strategy that has proven its value at Red Bull. However, this agreement never materialized.
Rangnick has decided that Markus Krosche, who spent most of his career betting in Paderborn’s moment department, succeeded him as sporting director in Leipzig when he moved to Red Bull.
Krosche’s sole is to continue building on Leipzig’s success.
“We are pleased to have the sponsorship of our sponsor, just like other clubs,” the 39-year-old told BBC Sport.
“Of course, we exchanged concepts with Red Bull and its subsidized clubs in New York and Brazil. But at the same time, we believe that we can create something exclusive here in Leipzig, creating our own identity.”
Rangnick in a taste for the game that RB Leipzig sought to pursue, then saw and hired players to meet those needs, all exclusively 23 years old or younger, all wanting to develop.
“We are for young, talented and hungry players,” Krosche said.
“We are willing to pay a lot of cash for the so-called football stars, we need to locate and expand the stars of tomorrow.”
Nathrough Keita, signed through Red Bull Salzburg, is the club’s record winner of 27 million pounds and has since been sold to Liverpool for a profit of 21 million pounds.
Other stars such as German striker Timo Werner, who has now joined Chelsea, were bought from Stuttgart relegated in 2016, Swedish winger Emil Forsberg joined Malmo in the department and Austrian winger Marcel Sabitzer arrived from Rapid Vienna before spending a season on loan. Red Bull Salzburg.
Keita, however, is the most productive example of how Red Bull’s club portfolio provides a global scouting network and a cross-club framework in which players can progress.
It is for the City Football Group, which runs through Manchester City and comprises clubs from all over the world such as Girona, New York City FC, Melbourne City and Yokohama Marinos, but arguably it is more effective to provide skills in the most sensitive of the tree.
James Powell, managing director of Carteret Capital, says this is for achieving each club’s sporting goals or reversing investment.
Powell calls it an “exhibition pyramid,” which is displayed in ever-higher degrees and expands its market value.
According to him, Red Bull’s “globalized and tailored player exchange platform” homeowners gain advantages from a smart and effective player exchange.
The movement between the clubs is fluid: midfielders Hannes Wolf and Amadou Haidara traded Salzburg for the Leipzig summer, American Tyler Adams arrived from New York in January and now Red Bull Salzburg head coach Jesse Marsch worked on all three.
The promising central defender Dayot Upamecano is another player and is on a long list that has represented more than one of Red Bull’s clubs, betting on Salzburg’s nutrient side, FC Liefering, before moving on to the first team and then joining Leipzig, but also an example of some other influence: that of former Liverpool coach , Houllier.
Schafer says Houllier’s contacts in his country were to lure several French players to Leipzig.
Upamecano’s headquarters are Ibrahima Konate, who signed for Sochaux in 2017, while right-back Nordi Mukiele has joined Montpellier and Paris St-Germain midfielder Christopher Nkunku. All represented France at the under-21 level.
“We’ve already shown that we can players and help them take the next step in their careers,” Krosche added.
“Especially in today’s football, a selection formula is one of the keys to success.”
Another recognizable cog in Red Bull’s tracking device was Paul Mitchell, the former recruiting chief in Southampton and Tottenham who joined Leipzig in 2018 and who has since been sporting director in Monaco.
Red Bull ranked 71st on Forbes’ list of top-value logos last year, has a logo price of more than 7.6 billion pounds and sells approximately seven billion cans of energy drinks in 171 countries a year.
So what does the company gain from club owners?
It’s having an eye on the brand: a club in The Red Bull wallet wears its logo on its T-shirt, is dressed in red, white and yellow and plays in its own Red Bull Arena. RB Leipzig is a Red Bull ad both one and both times that hits a ball.
The same can be said of the brand’s adventures in Formula 1, e-sports and sports.
Spectators will see Red Bull cars and drivers through 22 stages of the upcoming F1 season, sponsored through the company’s team and eSports events, such as the Red Bull Dragon Ball FighterZ World Final, capture the attention of a new younger demographic as stunts such as Red Strat BullOs’ High Altitude Diving Assignment are performed , which saw Felix Baumgartner return to Earth from the stratosphere in 2012, was seen live through more than nine million YouTube users.
It also sponsors athletes in a wide range of sports to showcase the brand, with English cricketer and BBC Sports Personality of the Year winner Ben Stokes and Liverpool and England defender Trent Alexander-Arnold among the top stars on his list.
“The key is consistent and competitive marketing by making sure the iconic logo is noticed through as many other people as possible,” Carteret Group Powell says.
But while logo recognition is a major factor, Red Bull also enjoys a number of highly successful franchises and has been a real good fortune for its sports companies.
“It’s not a vain project,” Powell adds. “Red Bull has proven to be an opinion leader.
Their objectives are similar to those of City Football Group, or they have established a global pyramidal plot in relation to the progression of their players, assisting team in the organization to the other.
“Red Bull turns out to have controlled to expand the marketing nuances that set the benchmark for other companies.”
Krosche said the club’s purpose at the start of the season was to win another place in the Champions League, which it achieved after the Bundesliga began in June.
They finished third, Borussia Dortmund and champions Bayern Munich, who have won eight titles in a row. In fact, the last time Bayern did not finish in the lead, Leipzig placed fourth in the Regionalliga Norte.
Krosche believes Leipzig’s Champions League race this season, the club is on the right track.
“We are an ambitious young team with an overl thirsty way,” the former midfielder added.
“Success never comes too soon. We were looking to succeed in circular 16 and we did. It was a huge step in our development.
“We don’t say our way is the best. There are many tactics to succeed.
“We’re on our way and we think there’s more to come.”
An edition of this article originally published in February 2020.