A few days before the Eintracht women's Bundesliga kick-off, Executive Board spokesman Axel Hellmann answered the question of the importance of women's football for Eintracht in a press conference.

This must be part of the overall picture of a "universal sports club" like Eintracht, he said.

Women's football changes the perception of unity in a positive way.

The fans would have liked more women's football.

And he hopes that the Eintracht games will “get a boost” again through the “live event” that has been created.

Kim Maurus

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By the “live event”, Hellmann also meant the media broadcast of women's football. For the first time in the 32nd Bundesliga season, all 132 matches will be shown live on MagentaSport. The contract runs for two seasons, Telekom and the German Football Association (DFB) share the investment. The ARD-Sportschau gives the players space in their reporting, Eurosport shows one game per game day on free TV, Sky broadcasts a top game in every cup round. There has never been so much media attention in the history of German women's football.

For Siegfried Dietrich, sports director of Eintracht Frauen, this is cause for great optimism.

"With the television contracts, the central marketing and our own marketing, the financing of women's football has taken on a new dimension," he says.

The women's Bundesliga is marketed centrally by the DFB, and Eintracht also has existing contracts, for example with the shirt sponsor.

According to FAZ information, each women's Bundesliga club receives between 300,000 euros and 400,000 euros, including the television revenues.

Not that far from the English league

Dietrich doesn't like to talk about such numbers. “It is important that we put women's football on an even better entrepreneurial footing in the future,” he says. However, money alone is not decisive, "but the seriousness with which we move the matter forward". It is no secret that women's football generally devours more money than it makes. The DFB published figures for the first time in February 2021: A women's Bundesliga club earned around 1.1 million euros on average in the 2019/2020 season, and it spent 2.1 million euros. Dietrich puts it this way: “In women's football, investment still plays a major role.” But the potential in women's football is much greater than is generally perceived.

The English league is way ahead of the German with the marketing of the games.

The European championship next year will also take place in England, "this will trigger a certain boost," says Dietrich.

The social acceptance of women's football is also higher in England.

About the quality of the game there, Dietrich says: “We are not that far away from it.” Especially in terms of breadth, German women's football is better positioned, in the second division there will be many teams in the future that could be recommended for the first division .

"Proportionality must always be right"

Dietrich believes that women's football will change fundamentally in three to five years: "I am hopeful that all the big men's clubs will soon be investing in women's football." It is important that women's and men's football take place under the umbrella of one club. "This is also one of Eintracht Frankfurt's intentions to open up the market even more for the media, viewers and sponsors." About the enormous differences in salaries between men and women, Dietrich only says: "The proportionality must always be right."

According to Dietrich, new television contracts from 2023 onwards should be “appropriately higher”.

Busy stadiums are also essential.

In the first game of the season against SC Sand, Eintracht had narrowly missed this endeavor, 1000 of 1046 approved places were occupied.

In order to anchor women's football more firmly in society, Dietrich sees another fundamental hurdle: “Women's football should take place regularly like men's football.” Then regular reporting would follow.

In order to fill the gaps in the game plan, some of which last several weeks, the number of teams would have to be increased, initially to 14, then to 16 teams.

"That would bring us more presence, and the players would then have a better basis for a full-time job as professional footballers."