A campfire in crisis? The German national football team during the pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has heavily affected a wide range of stakeholders in the sport sector. Yet, some professional sports managed to gain exceptions from the restrictive anti-COVID-19 policies. The current paper assumes that the effects could have been ambiguous. On the one hand, professional sports could have benefitted from its position as provider of live TV events. On the other hand, the exceptions for professional sports could have stirred the anger of a frustrated public. We explore these questions by examining two unique dataset on TV ratings for and identification with the German men’s national team during the EURO 2020. We find that the national football team, which has been depicted as last national ‘campfire’, has been a relative loser in terms of viewership, which might, however, also reflect the team’s long-term decline. We find also that approval of a special treatment for professional football has been linked to higher team identification.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Evans et al., ‘Sport in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.’

2. Grix et al, ‘The impact of Covid-19 on sport.’

3. Ibid.; Skinner & Smith, ‘Sport and COVID-19.’

4. Rowe, ‘Subjecting pandemic sport to a sociological procedure.’

5. See note 2 above; See note 4 above.

6. See note 2 above Drewes, Dauman & Follert, ‘Sports economic impact of COVID-19 on professional soccer’; Horky, ‘The importance of spectators and broadcasting.’

7. Manoli, COVID-19 and the solidification of media’s power in football.

8. Koos, Vihalemm & Keller, ‘Consumption and social resilience’; Hall et al, ‘consumption displacement and COVID-19’.

9. See note 2 above.

10. Mastromartino et al, ‘Sports fans, teams and environment in the context of COVID-19’.

11. See note 2 above; Horky, ‘The importance of spectators and broadcasting’.

12. Majumdar & Naha, ‘Live sport during the COVID-19 crisis’; see note 10 above; Goldman & Hedlung, ‘Broadcasting Sport and Esports to Homes During COVID-19’; Skinner & Smith, ‘Sport and COVID-19.’

13. Majumdar & Naha, ‘Live sport during the COVID-19 crisis.’

14. Sharpe, Mountifield & Filo, ‘Social media response’.

15. See note 4 above: 710.

16. Ibid.

17. Horky, ‘The importance of spectators and broadcasting’.

18. Yeung, ‘Did the COVID-19-Pandemic trigger nostalgia?’.

19. Ibid; Meier & Hagemann, ‘“Fußballisierung”’.

20. Meier & Leinwather, ‘National identity’; Meier, Strauss & Riedl, ‘Feminization of sport audiences and fans?’

21. Gerke & Mutz, ‘Fußballtuniere.’

22. Knoll, Schramm, & Schallhorn, ‘Mood effects’.

23. Hagen, Zeh, & Müller-Klier, ‘Fußball in den Medien’.

24. Mutz, Gehrke & Meier, ‘German national self-stereotypes’.

25. Mutz, ‘Patrioten’.

26. Alexander, ‘Merkels Ende und das Drama der deutschen Politik’.

27. See note 26 above.

28. Infratest Dimap, ARD-Deutschland Trend: Februar 2021.

29. Infratest Dimap, ARD-Deutschland Trend: April 2021.

30. Horeni “Gibt es einen Plan”; Horeni, “Bonjour Rumpelfußball”; Kneer, “Das große Puzzeln”.

31. Meier & Leinwather, ‘National identity’.

32. Reinsch, ‘DFB räumt Fehler in der Affäre Özil ein’ 28.

33. Horeni, ‘Die Quadratur des Fußballs’; 34; Horeni, In den Fesseln der alten DFB-Welt.’

34. Kamp, “Isch over’; Horeni,” Selbstbetrug’.

35. Selldorf, ‘Deutschland’.

36. See Cialdini et al., ‘Basking in reflected glory’; Wann & Branscombe, ‘Identification on BIRGing and CORFing’.

37. See note 31 above.

38. Ballinger, ‘Using generalized estimating equations’.

39. Hardin & Hilbe, ‘Generalized Estimating Equations’.

40. Pan, ‘Akaike’s information criterion’.

41. See note 32 above: 210.

42. Meier, Konjer & Strauss, “Identification with the women’s national soccer in Germany’; Meier & Strauss, ‘Fan identification and national identity’; Meier, Strauss & Riedl, Feminization of sport audiences and fans?’; Vergeld, Krüßmann, & Strauss, ‘Identification with a National Soccer Team and expectancies regarding success’.

43. Strauss, ‘Deutsche Adaptation der Team Identification Scale’; English original: Wann & Branscombe, ‘Measuring sports fans degree of identification with their team.’

44. Cialdini et al., ‘Basking in reflected glory’; Wann & Branscombe, ‘Measuring sports fans degree of identification with their team’.

45. Meier, Strauss & Riedl, ‘Feminization of sport audiences and fans?’.

46. Haddad, Hartmann & Zubayr, ‘Nutzungsgewohnheiten und Reichweiten im Jahr 2020.’

47. Haddad, Hartmann & Zubayr, ‘Nutzungsgewohnheiten und Reichweiten im Jahr 2020.’

48. Webster, Phalen & Lichty, ‘Audience measurement and analytics.’