Exclusive
Shortly before the start of the new season, Union Berlin has no main sponsor. The Union executive committee stopped a million-euro contract with the classifieds portal Kleinanzeigen shortly before it was concluded.
When 1. FC Union Berlin presented its home jersey for the new season at the beginning of August, there was a placeholder on the chest. Where Bundesliga clubs usually advertise with the logo of a sponsor, the red and white Adidas shirts simply featured the word “Berlin” – in capital letters and with the i in the shape of the famous TV tower on Alexanderplatz. The future jersey sponsor will be “decided calmly and carefully,” said Bernd von Geldern, the managing director responsible for marketing at Union, on the club’s website.
Behind the scenes, however, things have been much less quiet at the club in terms of shirt sponsorship. According to information from star A contract with a company recently fell through shortly before it was signed: the online classifieds platform wanted to take over the empty space on the Union jersey for a sum of 5 million euros per year. Negotiations were well advanced. But in the last few days, the club’s executive committee, led by President Dirk Zingler, stopped the deal. The club could now start the new Bundesliga season without a main sponsor.
It has been known for several weeks that the lucrative advertising space on Union’s jerseys will be free. After last season, in which Union played in the Champions League, the contract with the previous jersey partner Paramount+ expired as per the terms of the contract. The streaming service had decided to withdraw from the German market. Accordingly, the US company, which replaced the insurance start-up Wefox as Union’s main sponsor for the 2023/2024 season, was no longer interested in a million-dollar advertising presence in the Bundesliga. The partnership with the club from Köpenick ended after just one season.
President Zingler: Union Berlin is selective
Union’s marketing company Sportfive has therefore been exploring the market for some time in the search for a successor to Paramount. The explorations led to intensive negotiations with Kleinanzeigen, Germany’s largest online classifieds portal, currently based in Kleinmachnow near Berlin, which formerly belonged to Ebay and was sold to the Norwegian group Adevinta in 2021. After starAccording to information, the contract term was one year plus an option to extend. Around two thirds of the annual volume of 5 million euros was to be paid in cash, it is said.
On the subject of shirt sponsors, club president Zingler recently said on the sidelines of the training camp in mid-July that the club was “selective” and did not want to take “just anyone”: There were “demands when it came to the values of the main sponsor”. In any case, Union would definitely not advertise for the arms company Rheinmetall, for example, said Zingler, referring to the sponsorship deal announced this spring by league rival Borussia Dortmund, which was controversial not only among fans.
In contrast, a jersey deal with classified ads would hardly have caused much of a stir – with a well-known company with Berlin connections and from an industry that would not raise any concerns even among critical fans. But then the club’s board stopped the negotiations. The reasons for this are not clear. star A spokesman for Union Berlin said that they “generally do not give any statements on the status of talks or possible negotiating partners”. Kleinanzeigen also declined to comment when asked.
The rival also competed without a sponsor
This means that FC Union could now suffer the same fate as its big city rival Hertha BSC a year ago: Hertha initially went into the last season without a shirt sponsor, but after a few match days an online betting provider came on board. For the 2024/2025 season, the club has already presented a new shirt partner.
Shortly before the launch of the new jersey, Union’s marketing director von Geldern was demonstratively relaxed about the topic of the main sponsor: At the moment, he said, they are “intensively dealing with the companies that have already expressed interest.” They will “take their time” to do this. And club president Zingler has already thought out loud about an option that is rather rare in the Bundesliga: Perhaps they want to “deliberately start the first two match days with the jersey that has Berlin on the chest.”
Source: Stern
