Arunava about Football A look at football & the world through my eyes!
Related Articles
Act responsibly and at the same time be accessible to your international fans: For these two reasons, in times of COVID-19, Borussia Dortmund is planning a “BVB Virtual Asia Tour” for the summer.
Due to the pandemic, the eight-time German Bundesliga champions prematurely canceled the original plan, a trip by the professional team to China and countries in Southeast Asia, early on. But “many fans and partners in the region approached us with the desire to be as close as possible to them, especially in such a difficult situation,” explains BVB managing director Carsten Cramer and explains: “This gave rise to the idea Dortmund, and in close cooperation with the locations of our offices in Singapore and Shanghai as part of the preparation for the Bundesliga season 2020/21, to be sent out digitally to Asia.”
The current runner-up is expected to bundle various measures in a “BVB Virtual Asia Tour” in the first days of August – both online via virtual encounters with players, livestreams from training sessions and possibly also from test games, as well as offline, provided this is under the applicable local ones Corona protective measures are possible in the form of on-site activities with BVB legends, mascots EMMA and the BVB Evonik football academy.
The tour should include in particular the more than 30 fan clubs of BVB in the region, but also partners such as Evonik, Puma, Rowe, Duisport and some Asian companies. Together with the main international sponsor Evonik and supplier Puma, the launch of the new cup jersey is planned, which BVB will traditionally wear in all games of the DFB Cup, the UEFA Champions League and international friendlies.
Benedikt Scholz, BVB Head of International & New Business, describes another concrete example of the design of the tour and the integration of events on site and at home, “A fan drives the BVB tour bus in Shanghai to the black and yellow watch party and learns there know EMMA in addition to the employees of the BVB China Office. Together they follow the live stream of the team’s training in Dortmund, accompanied by a Chinese commentator and with a link to the Chinese reporter on the training site. After the training, he or she will meet BVB players for an exclusive online meet & greet.”
A few days later, during the virtual stops in Singapore or Tokyo, media representatives would be invited to special online press conferences, with exclusive interview opportunities for the Bundesliga TV partners in the respective regions, and again accompanied by live shows about the training in English.
“Very quickly after it became clear that COVID-19 would make it impossible for us and our Asian friends to look forward to a real long reunion this summer, we looked intensively at alternative options,” explains Benedikt Scholz. “The result is this virtual journey that we know will never replace personal contact with people. But it was and still is important to us to be able to express our solidarity with our worldwide fans and friends in this way. And of course we all hope that we will soon get through this difficult phase together.”
