© Kenneth Cortsen, May 2010
FC St. Pauli
– there is more to fan experiences than quality of football
The football club FC St. Pauli from the
Hamburg-neighborhood Sankt Pauli – well
situated by the famous and colorful
Reeperbahn – has a sporting legacy mainly
reflected by a position far from the ‘Promised
Land’ in the top of the German Bundesliga. The
club has had stints in the Bundesliga but has
never found itself established in the prestigious
top of German football; the most stable on-pitch
performances and results dates back to the end
of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s.
Though, the sun is shining on the club in other
ways. FC St. Pauli has become a well-known
brand name. That is the case among football
enthusiasts but also among people with
knowledge of the city of Hamburg or in social
debates in general. FC St. Pauli is well known
for its association with the political left wing.
The promotion to the German Bundesliga in
2010 after almost 10 years in lower leagues is
just a bonus for the club and its fans. This
promotion creates additional media attention
but that has not been paramount to secure
great levels of fan loyalty for the club. This
should be seen from the perspective that FC St.
Pauli over the years has formed strong
attachments to its fans based on factors more
important than the artistic aesthetics of football
or a position in the top of the Bundesliga.
Success based on the right ingredients
Stakeholders of the club admit that fans
attending games consume a perfect cocktail of
drama,
unpredictability,
excitement,
and
entertainment – elements illustrated in products
or services linked to experience economy.
Additionally, FC St. Pauli’s home games at
Millerntor account for a breakaway from
ordinary outlines for football games. Fans are
motivated to interact and participate socially,
which in a titillating way goes under the skin of
‘experience-seeking’ individuals. Expectations
regarding the home team are not based on ball
acts à la Messi but rather on strong work ethics
and hard tackles – a culture that has been
reproduced and reinforced by head coach
Holger Stanislawski. Establishment of a winning
culture reflecting the importance of discipline
and a humble approach to performances on the
pitch has added to the sporting restoration of
the club. Stanislawski’s popularity stems from a
focus on virtues and values characterizing the
special FC St. Pauli atmosphere. According to
fans of the club, this atmosphere seems very
strong presently – not only off but also on the
pitch. Stanislawski is perceived as an idol in the
minds of many fans; as a player his style of play
equaled hard work. This factor has been
transferred to the present squad along with
values such as respect, tolerance, and
solidarity - with this in mind; FC St. Pauli’s
promotion to the Bundesliga was secured with
the right ingredients.
VTO’s Kenneth Cortsen visiting Millerntor, home turf for FC St.
Pauli. The notorious ’Ultras’ support the team from the stands
behind one of the goals.
Tribal culture shaped by the fans
Fans of the club are seen as a vital stakeholder
group given the fact that they have created a
fan culture seldom seen elsewhere. Despite
relative modest results on the pitch, it has been
very attractive to hold tickets for FC St. Pauli
games. In this case, fan culture contains more
than being a football fan in traditional sense.
Among fans of the club, there is sympathy with
the political left wing, openness towards
diversity and a rebellious spirit to break away
from the conformity of the surrounding society.
FC St. Pauli’s fans are very loyal. Tribal culture
as a concept indicates that there is a strong
identification with or feelings of loyalty to a
specific tribe or culture – here exemplified by
FC St. Pauli. In other words, tribal culture deals
with a situation where there are penetrating
common denominators among members of a
group for what reason they effectively
contribute to ‘build a sense of unity’ and ‘esprit
de corps’, i.e. the strong loyalty to the club is
reflected in tribal culture as a phenomenon. Fan
loyalty among these fans does not primarily
come from football but rather from a political
ideology shared by the large community
characterizing fans of the club. Leading
researchers within this context point towards
specific behavioral and consumption patterns in
terms of tribal culture. Aspects derived from
this line of thinking may be transferred to the
fan behavior of FC St. Pauli’s devoted and loyal
fans and the development of the related culture.
The following citation may display this by
accounting for the fact that tribal cultures:
“do not consume things without
changing them; they cannot ‘consume’
a good without it becoming them and
them becoming it; they cannot
‘consume’ a service without engaging
in a dance with the service provider,
where the dance becomes the service.
Participatory culture is everywhere.”
(Cova, Kozinets & Shankar, 2007, s. 4)
The extreme political left wing mindsets, the
rebellious nature, the need to be able to
express an alternative originality (seen as a
contrast to the common and widespread norms
of society in a market economy) and the clash
with violent hooliganism controlled by the
extreme right wing are all elements tying FC St.
Pauli fans together. FC St. Pauli has become
the ‘pirate ship’ from which the rebellious
pirates or buccaneers can imprint their marks
on
the
world.
The
above-mentioned
researchers point to tribal cultures (here as FC
St. Pauli fans) rarely consuming brands without
adding to these brands or combining them with
aspects of their own lives. FC St. Pauli is
personified with their fans and the other way
around.
Media exposure of the club often concerns fans
at the expense of players – given the unique
role of FC St. Pauli fans in today’s
contemporary sports world. Without any doubt,
media have played an essential role in building
and securing the ’cult status’ of the club – in
Germany and abroad. Among other things, an
exceptional friendship between the fans of FC
St. Pauli and Celtic FC from Scotland has
emerged due to value-based common
denominators such as tolerance, work ethic,
and extraordinary fan behavior. As a result, an
annual
‘Celtic Party’ in the entertaining St.
Pauli district of Hamburg and friendly matches
and fan visits across international borders are
still going strong.
Merchandise from FC St. Pauli imprinted with skull and
crossbones.
Visiting Millerntor gives a good impression of
the distinctive nature of the club’s fan culture. It
may remind visitors of inauguration into a
religious sect. This can be seen when you visit
Millerntor and find yourself surrounded by fans
dressed in black hooded sweatshirts imprinted
with skull and crossbones serving as a
’trademark’ of the club. The left wing fans, who
characterized the St. Pauli district of Hamburg
with large intakes of diverse groups, e.g.
students, punkers, artists and others from the
’creative class’, adopted the skull and the
crossbones as a symbolic act reflecting the
rebellious group of FC St. Pauli sympathizers
creating an alternative fan scenery around
Millerntor. This dates back to the 80s. When the
flag with skull and crossbones was ’planted’ at
Millerntor, and FC St. Pauli saw increased
media attention in the Bundesliga, fan hysteria
surrounding the club reached new heights and
the road to ’cult status’ was founded. The social
touch gained when visiting the club, meeting
friends and sharing experiences and values
leads to a strong manifestation of the culture in
positive collaboration with broad-minded
opinions and clear opposition against right wing
extremism. The solid footing of the club is also
displayed via its offering of other sports than
football. FC St. Pauli also offers such sports as
American football, bowling, boxing, handball,
rugby, cycling, chess, table tennis and triathlon.
Fan power and commercialization of football
Often, home games at Millerntor are sold out.
The stadium is currently being modernized to
increase the maximum capacity from around
20,000 to 30,000 spectators. To keep the
unique atmosphere at Millerntor, parts of the
stands contain no seats to meet the needs of
the ’Ultras’, i.e. the hardcore fans being central
to setting the standard for the uniqueness of the
atmosphere. These fans support the team from
the stands behind one of the goals. It is an
interesting appeal that the ‘Ultras’ stand
beneath the VIP-area. The VIPs have often
sent free beer down to the ‘Ultras’ – an extra
twist in an exciting culture.
In other professional football clubs, the desire
for immediate success on the pitch often leads
to speculative investments in the glow of
commercialization. Thus, representatives of
professional football clubs are often willing to
sell their souls for a blank check from
businessmen wishing to utilize football as a
stage for personal gains. However, the agenda
is different in FC St. Pauli. Although it requires
substantial financing to run a professional
football team in the Bundesliga and to build the
club’s infrastructure at a similar level, FC St.
Pauli operates with a budget being ’light years’
away from the best teams in the league.
Working strategically with fan relations is
natural for the club. This is consolidated by
involving the fans in decision making
processes. Regarding the name of Millerntor,
fans voted to keep this name and hence to
avoid selling the naming rights to the highest
bidder. The same goes for other sponsorship
tasks in the club, which is exemplified by
choosing Dacia – a discount edition of a car
with Romanian roots and now a subsidiary
under the French car group Renault – as a
main sponsor and thus a sharp contrast to
German luxury car brands such as BMW,
Mercedes or Audi. The latter would give the
fans another experience-based association with
the club’s identity – a situation that the club
does not want to jeopardize! The fans are very
committed, also in a political way. Therefore,
fans have underlined the importance of
managing the club while displaying social
responsibility in alignment with cultural values
of the club. This responsibility is expressed by
maintaining positive relations to the large group
of loyal fans, who are always there whether the
club is in the Bundesliga or in lower divisions.
Other examples of fan power is reflected in the
fans’ abilities to influence the club’s
management of commercial assets. For
instance, there are no commercials shown at
the club’s ’Video Wall’ during matches to give
fans ’90 minutes of football’ without disturbing
commercial messages. Moreover, it is an
interesting angle that FC St. Pauli does not sell
many home and away shirts with imprinted
names of the players. That is evidence of a
roster without world famous players. Again,
stakeholders of FC St. Pauli witness a stark
contrast to the commercialization of the biggest
clubs in the Bundesliga or to the ’Beckham
effect’ affecting merchandise sales in Real
Madrid when David Beckham performed there
as an iconized individual.
2010 and new rivalries against HSV
The rivalry between FC St. Pauli and
neighboring Hamburger Sport-Verein (HSV) is
a huge deal in Hamburg. The clash between
the two teams in the upcoming Bundesliga
season is not only about points for the table but
also about derisive words. The city of Hamburg
breathes football in the build-up to this rivalry,
which in importance comes close to a World
Cup Final in the Hamburg area.
A match between FC St. Pauli and HSV is also
a conflict between different values and is often
associated with verbal or violent riots. FC St.
Pauli has nothing to lose on the pitch if focus is
on the gaps in operational budgets. Both clubs
have many fans in Hamburg, which does not
make the derby less interesting, especially not
when mentioning the head-on collision between
different values. HSV is the big brother standing
as a good example of capitalist business
methods whereas FC St. Pauli acts as a proud
upstart being loyal to its own identity and trying
to find its ’very own way’ in the fine company of
the Bundesliga. The interesting piece of the
latter is the challenges faced when finding a
balance between financial demands and the
way to meet these demands without hurting fan
relations or the unique identity of the club. At
the same time, FC St. Pauli finds itself in a time
of unrest where stadium expansion and the
financial demands to meet life in the Bundesliga
may affect FC St. Pauli’s authenticity as left
wing ’cult club’. I hope that they find a way to
build a bridge across what may be ’troubled
water’.
Cova, B., Kozinets, V. & Shankar, A. (2007). Consumer Tribes. 1. ed. Butterworth-Heinemann. Oxford, England.
For more information about tribal culture:
For further comments regarding this article, please feel free to contact Ph.D.-Researcher and Business Development Strategist Kenneth
Cortsen from VTO (Knowledge Centre for the Tourism and Experience Industry), e-mail: [email protected] or phone: +45 23364160. In
addition to a background as a researcher and practitioner in Denmark and abroad within the above-mentioned topics, Kenneth also consults
for various organizations in the sports, tourism, and experience industries.