Since its launch just six months ago, FC Bayern Digital & Media Lab GmbH has already built up a portfolio of several European football partners, FC Bayern sponsors as well as promising start-ups.

FC Bayern Digital & Media Lab GmbH has now agreed long-term partnerships with three well-established European clubs, covering the areas of infrastructure, back-end systems and hosting. 20-time Swiss champions FC Basel, 24-time Austrian champions FK Austria Wien and Bundesliga 2 club Dynamo Dresden will now be relying on the services and infrastructure of FC Bayern’s media subsidiary.

FC Bayern München AG chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said: “We’re delighted that three well-known and traditional clubs are counting on our know-how and have put their faith in us.”

FC Bayern Digital & Media Lab GmbH managing director Stefan Mennerich commented: “Our media subsidiary will invest all its efforts into offering our partners the best possible service.”

Bernhard Burgener, president of FC Basel 1893: “One of our aims was to enter partnerships with top clubs in Europe. The fact that it’s FC Bayern, who I regard very highly, pleases me greatly. It’s the start of a partnership with one of the most successful football clubs in the world.”

Markus Kraetschmer, CEO of FK Austria Wien: “For Austria Wien, digitalisation is a central theme going forward. We want to make our club a tangible experience, enthuse our existing supporters and attract new ones. However, the basic prerequisite for this is that we act in a forward-looking manner in order to keep up with fast-paced development of the market. The partnership with Bayern is the next big step in that direction.”

Michael Born, commercial manager of Dynamo Dresden: “It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the first, second or fourth league, whether you’re a professional or amateur club: you can’t get anywhere today without digitalisation. We’re investing in the future and will take our fans on this journey with us.”

The basis for the founding of FC Bayern Digital & Media Lab GmbH was the ‘FC Bayern Digital 4.0’ project, behind which is a process of radical digital transformation at the German record champions. This has seen FC Bayern take a pioneering role in the field of digitalisation in football.

Over the course of the 18-month process, 52 different, incompatible systems have been replaced by a single, unified software and IT infrastructure. The trail-blazer here was the commissioning of a data center in autumn 2016 as well as the launch of proprietary front-end and back-end systems. FC Bayern is no longer a licensee of third parties but instead the owner of its own infrastructure. FC Bayern Digital 4.0 was launched in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom AG and SAP. Since its launch, the project has been continually developed and established so that FCB Digital & Media Lab GmbH, which was founded specifically for this purpose, can offer partners and interested parties a digital platform that is probably unique in football, along with a wide range of digital services.

(FC Bayern Munich)