With the home game against ratiopharm Ulm this Saturday (8.30 p.m.), basketball Bundesliga team s.Oliver Würzburg will start the new season without a spectator. While the ambitions in recent years have always been to have a strong say in the allocation of play-off places, now in times of the Corona the main concern is to keep the club economically alive and the class athletic. A conversation with Baskets managing director Steffen Liebler (36) about the recent change of ownership and the drastically reduced budget, about the virus and games in empty halls.
Question: Last week, the previous sole shareholder Bernd Freier passed the club on to three new owners. What will the change for the baskets change?
Steffen Liebler: Nothing will change for the employees at first. For me, the first contacts change. But of course I’m still in touch with Bernd Freier. His passion for basketball is unbroken. At first, nothing changes in the budget or the like. It was a directional decision for the long term future.
You spoke of a generation change. But parts of the appendix fear that it could quickly go down the drain with the club. Does Bundesliga basketball have a long-term future in Würzburg?
Favorites: In any case, otherwise no new shareholders would have agreed to take on this task if there was no future. Our medium and long-term goal is of course to keep the Bundesliga location. Now, due to the Corona crisis – and that has nothing to do with the change of shareholders – we have shrunk as small as it is somehow possible, it is no longer much smaller. When we are through this phase, we want to grow little by little and look up a little more. But the goal of the near future can only be to persevere.
The season starts at the weekend, and spectators are prohibited at least throughout November. How long can s.Oliver Würzburg afford to play in an empty hall?
Favorites: As soon as the extent of the consequences of the pandemic was halfway foreseeable, we made worst-case planning and prepared ourselves for the worst. Accordingly, we have approached everything that has to do with costs very drastically. Starting with the player budget, which was cut down very drastically. We closed the office on Berliner Ring and moved here to the training center. We were on short-time work and unfortunately had to part with some employees. We have completely outsourced some areas such as the organization of a home game. That means that in an emergency we would get through a whole season without spectators. At least as long as the sponsors stay with them and not all of them suddenly demand repayment. But the conversations that I have had and still have about this issue almost exclusively leave me with a very good feeling. We are therefore economically stable despite the current situation.
After the crisis began in the spring, you once said that a complete season without spectators would be hard to imagine and not survive. . .
Favorites: It’s not easy either. What is currently also helping us, of course, is the federal grant that we have just applied for and received.
The government’s corona rescue package for professional sport because of the lost viewer income in the spring due to the seasonal break and the upcoming ghost games, right? How much is the grant?
Favorites: The grant is calculated from the difference in viewer income from April 2019 to December 2019 and April 2020 to December 2020. The club receives a maximum of 80 percent of this difference. In addition, the rescue package is a maximum of 800,000 euros per club. In addition, the amount of the subsidy on the loss that the club has accumulated in the calendar year 2020 is capped. Nevertheless, there is an important sum that helps us a lot.
“With 3000 people in a small hall like ours, in which everyone is almost already sitting on the field, you tend to grow beyond yourself.”
Steffen Liebler, managing director of Baskets–What does a home game without an audience cost the club?
Darling: That is very difficult to say right now. Since we don’t have any viewers for the time being, the federal subsidy increases. It’s capped at 800,000 euros per club, which of course we can’t achieve because our hall isn’t as big as the one in Berlin or Munich, for example. At the same time, our costs for home games are of course a little lower because we don’t have to set up any grandstands, we don’t need as many staff, security and so on.
But the grant is only available until the end of the year?
Darling: As of today: yes. We have applied for the maximum, knowing that we cannot apply again, knowing full well that if spectators were to be allowed again in December, we would have to pay something back.
In football you have got used to ghost games. But basketball without a spectator is another house number, as the cup game in Ulm against Bamberg showed. How much do the empty halls hurt?
Favorites: It hurts a lot. Because of course we want to continue to bring the basketball experience closer to the fans and sponsors. I think many partners also support us because they think the indoor experience is so great. It’s a very stupid situation. It will also have an impact on sport. With 3,000 people in a small hall like ours, in which everyone is almost already sitting on the field, you tend to grow beyond yourself. In a test match atmosphere, this is less the case when you get the last five to ten percent out of your body. And you don’t get any additional motivation from the frenetic support of the fans. So I think there will be fewer surprises on this lap. And of course that doesn’t make it any easier for a club like ours, which also tries to live off surprises.
At the cup games, coach Denis Wucherer said that the team had to push itself forward through the support of those who were not currently on the floor. Which, of course, only succeeded in phases, but is of course easier said than done. . .
Favorites: To be carried by the fans is something completely different, there is a lot more adrenaline in the body than when you know there is nothing going on in the hall now. This also makes it more difficult for the bankers to show a lot of emotion. It will also be a big challenge on Saturday against Ulm. We have to see that we outgrow ourselves.
The budget was almost halved, you mentioned it: It’s primarily about the survival of the club as a whole, but also about survival in sport. The schedule with the first games against Ulm, Vechta, Hamburg, Bamberg and Braunschweig does not necessarily give rise to excessive optimism. . .
Favorites: You have to be aware of that. That’s why we lowered our expectations. It’s something that I too have to get used to, to which the fans have to get used to, that our young team might have a few fewer wins than in recent years. But I feel better and more certain that we are financially stable and that we have not entered into any adventures and that we might then have to tremble at running into money problems. Of course, it’s a challenge to keep the league, but you have to see: We have a season ahead of us in which you simply don’t know what’s going to happen, as the cup competition has already proven with those canceled due to corona cases Play. And the European competitions also show how things can continue with game cancellations or the suspension of entire competitions. Our trainer has already shown in Giessen that he can work successfully even with a low budget. That’s why we were very happy that Denis pulled along when we introduced him to the player budget. And that’s why I’m also positive that we have a team that will keep its class, show fast and attractive basketball, grow in itself and always give it its all. Even if every game will be an extremely difficult one and we will have to deal with a small series of defeats from time to time. But: The new shareholders know that, we as a club know that we have to go down a bit with the demands and keep a cool head.
A quick look into the crystal ball: do you think the season will even end? Attempts are currently being made to break the second corona wave, and who knows today whether a third might not come at the beginning of next year. . .
Favorites: I do think that we’ll end the season, it’s just a question of how you can manage that with game cancellations with the catch-up dates. That could be problematic because the regular season should be over by mid-May.
League boss Stefan Holz got quite upset last weekend after the entire teams were quarantined by the health authorities in two corona cases in Bayreuth and one in Bonn and the games had to be canceled. The ingenious hygiene concept of the Bundesliga was practically superfluous, was his tenor. Are the clubs in contact with the league and the authorities?
Favorites: Yes of course we are. Also with our health department. Our hygiene concept has been approved for up to 1000 spectators if the incidence value is below 35. If it is above that, we have to discuss with the health department how many people we are allowed to let in and, of course, also consider from how many viewers it still makes economic sense for us. If too few are allowed, the cost factor would probably be too high.
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