Red Bullification — Square Ball 9/8/24
A brief history of Bull's Piss
Written by: Wayne Gamble
An article in When Saturday Comes magazine on Red Bull’s
rebrand of SV Austria Salzburg in 2005 changed my life. Reading how they had
wiped the club’s history, shut the terraces of its most hardcore fans, called
them “hooligans” and mocked attempts to negotiate the return of violet and
white — the club’s colours since 1933 — by offering purple-tinted plastic
glasses through which to watch matches, had me shocked at the state of
football.
Anger, specifically at Ken Bates’ Leeds United, became a
motivational creative force for me. Stickers, t-shirts, pull-out posters —
Visit Beeston, Kenopoly, Batesonomics — none of these things would’ve happened
in The Square Ball without Austria Salzburg fans. They altered the way I think
about football, making me question exactly what it is that we’re supporting.
It only took a matter of weeks for negotiations to break
down in 2005, from pre-season optimism of a rumoured big sponsor to the fateful
September home game against Austria Wien, when fan groups who had forged the
Initiative Violett-Weiss walked out through violet smoke bombs on 33 minutes to
do as owners Red Bull dared: form their own club.
This I simply had to see. A year later, after contact with
the Initiative and being put in touch with Harry, who would be my local host
and is now one of my best mates, I did. Upon arrival at their modest, bustling
ground in Nonntal for the final seventh-tier game before the winter break, I
heard Marching On Together playing over the tannoy, which shouldn’t have been
such a surprise because we’d arranged exactly that over pints of Stiegl the
night before.
Through the years I’ve been welcomed back time and again by
Harry and his fellow Absolut Salzburg group members to share their club’s
exhilarating journey up the Austrian leagues. I’ve talked with fans young and
old, from ultras to club chairmen, about how they went from three Bundesliga
titles and a UEFA Cup final in the 1990s to awaydays at municipal sports
grounds in obscure villages with poetic names like Schleedorf and
Leopoldskron-Moos. The reason was described to me as Red Bullification —
rebranding clubs to the limits of regulation using extreme workarounds,
oppressing fan culture and cracking down on criticism – and all of this was my
introduction to it. Maybe these words are yours.
So why do they do it? And how? To understand that you need
to know a bit about what Red Bull is. In the 1980s, Austrian toothpaste
salesman Dieter Mateschitz found that a Thai drink, Krating Daeng, eased his
jetlag. He did a deal with its producer, Chaleo Yoovidhya: his company would
make an adapted, fizzy version of the drink that Mateschitz would market to
Europe and beyond. The company, Red Bull GmbH, was split 49% Mateschitz and 51%
Yoovidhya, but Mateschitz would run it. Red Bull is still produced today in
Thailand by TC Pharmaceutical and canned in Europe and the USA by the Austrian
firm, Rauch.
So Red Bull GmbH don’t make Red Bull — just adverts for it,
and lots of them. From their headquarters in picturesque Fuschl am See fifteen
miles east of Salzburg, the marketing company identifies properties it can own
to advertise its brand. From soapbox cars, flugtag, and air racing to
motorsport, road cycling and football teams, everything is associated with
youthful energy reflective of the drink’s brand demographic — the target market
for everything they do.
Red Bull GmbH didn’t create the drink, nor any of the
football clubs currently advertising it. SV Austria Salzburg, New York/New
Jersey Metrostars, SSV Markranstädt, USK Anif, Clube Atlético Bragantino: the
identities of these clubs in locations deemed by the company to be advantageous
to its brand were all replaced by white shirts with the same bulls on the
chest. What differed were Red Bull GmbH’s means of engagement and how the
company navigated any regulations designed to stop behaviour like theirs.
After several clubs — FC Sachsen Leipzig, FC St Pauli, TSV
1860 München, and Fortuna Düsseldorf — declined proposals to become Red Bull’s
German club alongside its teams in Austria and America, in 2009 the company hit
upon an idea that became key to its subsequent acquisitions. They entered a
partnership agreement with fifth-tier SSV Markranstädt. The tiny suburban
Leipzig outfit would form the basis of a club earmarked for the city’s
unoccupied 43,000-seat Zentralstadion, which would become Red Bull Arena, and
the club, due to DFB rules, were named RB Leipzig.
An €800 annual membership scheme open only to a select few
Red Bull GmbH people ensured the club met the criteria of German football’s
rule requiring at least 50% +1 of a club’s shares to be held by members, even
if there were only seven of them. Because everything else was expendable, RB
Leipzig established two things: that Red Bull’s most important asset when
buying a club was not its fanbase or history but merely its playing licence;
and the extremes to which they would go to achieve their aims.
It also established the power of partnerships. Frustrated at
ÖFB rules preventing Austrian Bundesliga reserve teams from being promoted to
professional second-tier football, in 2012 Red Bull Salzburg formed a
partnership with third-tier USK Anif. It successfully argued with the league
that because it now operated under USK Anif’s playing licence, the renamed
club, FC Liefering, wasn’t Red Bull Salzburg’s reserves at all — despite
wearing Red Bull Salzburg’s colours and playing at Red Bull Salzburg’s ground.
In 2019, having failed to promote Red Bull Brasil to Série
A, the company again signed a partnership, this time with second-tier Clube
Atlético Bragantino in Bragança Paulista, sixty miles north of São Paulo. Red
Bull sponsored the club’s shirts which, like the rest of its identity, it was
assured would remain untouched. “Não mudará escudo,” the club tweeted. “We will
not change the badge.” Boosted by the arrival of Red Bull Brasil’s
infrastructure, they were promptly promoted in special edition black and white
shirts harking back to a 1990s era fondly remembered by fans. It was the last
shirt Clube Atlético Bragantino ever wore, because the following season they
were renamed Red Bull Bragantino.
To 2024, and Red Bull GmbH has once again established a
partnership, this time in the largest one-club city in the UK, the company’s
second-biggest market globally, with all the usual assurances. Sure, it’s a
minority shareholding and the buck, he insists, may well stop with Leeds United
chairman Paraag Marathe now, but what about when it doesn’t? What value is
there in saying, “It’s not going to be the Leeds Red Bulls — they understand
that,” about a company with two decades’ worth of workarounds as precedents?
Red Bull Salzburg are called FC Salzburg in European competition; RB stands not
for the obvious but for RasenBallsport; neither FC Liefering’s name nor badge
has any bulls whatsoever.
Following the death of Red Bull GmbH co-founder Dieter
Mateschitz in 2022, it is hoped the firm has mellowed in its approach to
ownership and is open to conventional sponsorship. But its initial stake at
Leeds United, and the now-familiar routine of its introduction as a
partnership, suggests otherwise. As fantastic as Leeds’ away kit looks in all
yellow with the Smiley badge, such priceless heritage is devalued when
appearing next to the logo of an owner of multiple clubs that pulled a similar
stunt at one they subsequently rebranded just five years ago.
For all these reasons and more, none of them to do with the
colour or even the word red, whatever they go on to do at or with Elland Road,
Red Bull GmbH at Leeds United is objectionable and sows serious doubts over
49ers Enterprises’ understanding of football tradition and fan culture. The
energy drink marketing company’s presence in LS11 will become increasingly
divisive over time.