Leaders 2022: "Covid has led to fast changing audience behaviour" (Donata Hopfen, DFL)

"Covid has led to fast changing audience behaviour. We need to find our own way. The balancing act of being aware of tradition and the very close ties to fandom and society, while on the other hand trying to embark on new journeys, is difficult and you always need to find a very fine middle way in order to get both dimensions going at the same time," said Donata Hopfen, chief executive officer of the DFL, during Leaders Week London 2022, a sports business conference, at Twickenham Stadium in London (ENG) on 28/09/2022.

"It's not as easy to to get capital in. It's not easy to copy other leagues and their behaviour. When others are taking capital in, we need to find our own way to go in a comparable way. We have a big chance now to not just copy what others do, but to maintain our tradition and still try to find new ways and manage the balancing act between being economically successful and still being very close to tradition, society and fandom," added Hopfen, who succeeded Christian Seifert as chairperson of the management board of DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH and spokesperson of…