Why EVERYBODY Hates Red Bull

[Music] Sebastian Albert, the game is over, and RB Leipzig are through to the semi-finals of the Champions League. Leipzig 2, Atletico Madrid 1. [Music] Red Bull, an Austrian-based energy drinks company known for its unique yet wacky cartoon adverts, strategic viral marketing, and endorsement of extreme sports. I'm sure you've all heard of these guys, and if you've ever had to pull an all-nighter on your varsity finals, you've definitely heard of these guys. I know I have. Red Bull gives you wings. Of course, in a literal sense, this is not true, but the same can't be said about the growth of the company since it was founded in 1984. Since then, they've gone up, up, and away. As of 2021, the company has a brand valuation of roughly 16 billion euros, and in 2020 alone, they sold over 7.9 billion cans of that sweet, sweet anti-sleep juice, which is odd considering the fact that we were all in lockdown back then. I'm not so sure why everyone needed to stay up so much. Anyway, you get the idea. This is a massive company. At this point, you may be asking, "Big man, this is a football channel. What are you going on about?" You're not wrong, Fred. In fairly recent times, the energy drink powerhouse has turned their attention to football, and long story short, they have a few fans, but they also have a long list of detractors. Like many questions in this strange thing we call life, the answer as to why is not black and white. So, in today's video, we're going to take a brief look into Red Bull's growing presence in world football: the good, the bad, and the possible way forward. Stick around because it'll be okay. So, without further ado, is Red Bull good for football or not? Yo, what's good, everyone? Really hope you're all having a smashing day. We're back with another banger. We'll get into the specifics in a bit, but regardless of where you stand on whether you're for or against Red Bull, you gotta admit that what they've done takes an enormous amount of skill. Speaking of which, if I wanted to learn a new skill, of course, you have. Look at you, you little smartypants. Fear not, because Skillshare, the sponsor of today's video, is here to help. Skillshare is an online learning platform boasting a user base in the millions. Learning and mastering new skills has never been more accessible than it is in today's day and age, and with thousands of premium classes on various topics and many more being added each week, now's your time to learn that thing that you've been saying you would for years now. Photography? Skillshare's got you covered. Graphic design? Skillshare. Video editing, scriptwriting, or sound design? You know where to go. It's Skillshare, in case you were wondering. If you ever thought about starting your own YouTube channel, for example, massive creators such as Marques Brownlee have you covered with classes on YouTube success. Here, in his class titled YouTube Success, he details how he scripts, shoots, and edits his videos. I took the class, and as I'm still personally learning so much about YouTube, it was superb. And for a limited time only, Skillshare is offering a one-month free trial to the first 1,000 people that join using the link in the description. That's zero dollars, by the way. It's a pretty good price, to be fair. So why not go ahead and join Skillshare and learn something new today? Huge thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video. Let's jump right back into Red Bull. Red Bull is known for many things, and amongst those things, they are perhaps most prominently known for their ability to draw attention towards themselves. To kick this one off, we're going to briefly look into the evolution of their marketing strategies over time. I don't care how good your product is, how much it'll help people, or how many hours you put into creating it. If nobody knows about it, it's essentially a failure from the get-go. Red Bull found a way to circumvent that dilemma. In the words of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz, "When we first started, we said there is no existing market for Red Bull, but Red Bull will create it." And this is what finally became true. Knowing that, it should come as no surprise that Mateschitz had obtained a top degree in marketing in his younger years, and by the time Red Bull had been thought of as a potential business, he already had years of quality experience in the industry. He knew what had to be done. In the beginning, his motive was simple: appeal to a younger, edgier crowd. Or another way of looking at it is a crowd that loves movement, an idea which saw him promote the products to college students by sponsoring house parties, bar and club events, and general debauchery. They would go to school campuses and employ brand ambassadors to distribute their product, something they still do to this day. These were usually just popular kids on campus, which is funny because I always used to see these people on campus when I was studying, but I mean, I was never approached. I'm not sure why. Wait a minute. They would place empty Red Bull cans in clubs and put an emphasis on word-of-mouth advertising. Remember, this was the late '80s, early '90s. Billboards, newspapers, prints, and other forms of mass marketing existed, but they didn't need any of that. They were revolutionizing the game, and what followed was even more maverick marketing behavior from them: sponsorship of extreme sports athletes and generally death-defying stunts. And as we can see, it all worked. 1988, the first ever Red Bull sponsored event, a gruelling extreme sports relay race known as the Dolomitenmann: mountain running, paragliding, mountain biking, whitewater kayaking. It's tough stuff. 1989, the first Red Bull sponsored athlete, Gerhard Berger, a former Austrian F1 driver. Sponsorship eventually turned to ownership over the years, notably 2005, Red Bull Racing is formed. Lewis Hamilton does not approve. This pattern would only continue to perpetuate, and keep in mind, yes, they were building up other revenue streams and making long-term investments, but that was not the end goal. At the end of the day, the only product this company sells is energy drinks. All of this sponsorship, all of this virality, all of it was and is still done primarily in the name of selling this caffeinated pick-me-up. [Music] Which brings us to football. 2005, SV Austria Salzburg, an Austrian club formed all the way back in 1933. Red Bull purchased the club, and fans were initially feeling a little optimistic for the future: a big company that could potentially bankroll the club and take them to the next level. Okay, let's go. But when you make a deal with the devil, don't be surprised when he comes to collect. Red Bull immediately went ahead and changed everything. The team's home kit was changed from a purple and white kit to red and white. The backroom staff, management, and even the name changed to align with the brand recognition intentions of the new owners. And to make matters worse, upon the takeover and reorganization, Red Bull CEO announced that this is a new club with no history. Yikes. Imagine hearing a new owner say that about the 72-year-old club you've supported all your life. Fans were dismayed and protested for Red Bull to honor their club's history, but the only thing they were willing to do was let the goalkeeper wear purple socks at away games. Oof. In retaliation, the OG fans registered their own club under the same name as the original one, SV Austria Salzburg. They currently play in the third tier of Austrian football. If you check the Red Bull Salzburg website, you'll see that they have since backtracked on the claims that this is an entirely new club. However, the damage was already done. It's also worth noting that this wasn't the only time Red Bull have done something like this, albeit to a smaller degree. A few months later, when purchasing Italian F1 racing team Minardi, change ushered in by Red Bull did not impress existing fans. Over 15,000 people signed a petition to maintain the name and heritage of the team, but this was unsuccessful, and Scuderia Toro Rosso, or Team Red Bull in English, was born. Having said that, just

marketing and endorsement of extreme sports i'm sure you've all heard of these guys and if you've ever had to pull an all-nighter on your varsity finals you've definitely heard of these guys i know i have red bull gives you

wings of course in a literal sense this is not true but the same can't be said about the growth of the company since it was founded in 1984. since then they've gone up up and away as of 2021 the

company has a brand valuation of roughly 16 billion euros and in 2020 alone they sold over 7.9 billion cans of that sweet sweet anti-sleep juice which is odd considering the fact that we were all in lockdown back then i'm not so sure why

everyone needed to stay up so much anyway you get the idea this is a massive company at this point you may be asking big man this is a football channel what are you going on about you're not wrong fred in fairly recent

times the energy drink powerhouse has turned their attention to football and long story short they have a few fans but they also have a long list of detractors like many questions in this strange thing we call life the answer as

to why is not black and white so in today's video we're going to take a brief look into red bull's growing presence in world football the good the bad and the possible way forward stick around because it'll be okay so without

further ado is red bull good for football or not yo what's good everyone really hope you're all having a smashing day we're back with another banger we'll get into the specifics in a bit but regardless of where you stand on whether you're for or

against red bull you gotta admit that what they've done takes an enormous amount of skill speaking of which if i wanted to learn a new skill of course you have look at you you little smartypants fear not because

skillshare the sponsor of today's video is here to help skillshare is an online learning platform boasting a user base in the millions learning and mastering new skills has never been more accessible than it is in today's day and

age and with thousands of premium classes and various topics and many more being added each week now's your time to learn that thing that you've been saying you would for years now photography skillshare's got you covered graphic design skillshare video editing script

writing or sound design you know where to go it's it's skillshare in case you were wondering if you ever thought about starting your own youtube channel for example massive creators such as marquez brownlee have you covered with classes

on youtube success here in his class titled youtube success he details how he scripts shoots and edits his videos i took the class and as i'm still personally learning so much about youtube it was superb and for a limited

time only skillshare is offering a one month free trial to the first 1000 people that join using the link in the description that's that's zero dollars by the way it's pretty good price to be fair so why not

go ahead and join skillshare and learn something new today huge thanks to skillshare for sponsoring this video let's jump right back into red bull red bull is known for many things and amongst those things they are perhaps most prominently known for their ability

to draw attention towards themselves to kick this one off we're going to briefly look into the evolution of their marketing strategies over time i don't care how good your product is how much it'll help people or how many

hours you put into creating it if nobody knows about it it's essentially a failure from the get-go red bull found a way to circumvent that dilemma in the words of red bull co-founder dietrich matashitz when we first started we said

there is no existing market for red bull but red bull will create it and this is what finally became true knowing that it should come as no surprise that matashitz had obtained a top degree in marketing in his younger years and by

the time red bull had been thought of as a potential business he already had years of quality experience in the industry he knew what had to be done in the beginning his motive was simple appeal to a younger edgier crowd or

another way of looking at it is a crowd that loves movement an idea which saw him promote the products to college students by sponsoring house parties bar and club events and general debauchery they would go to school campuses and

employ brand ambassadors to distribute their product something they still do to this day these were usually just popular kids on campus which is funny because i always used to see these people on campus when i was studying but i mean i

was i was never approached i'm not sure why wait a minute they would place empty red bull cans in clubs and put an emphasis on word of mouth advertising remember this was the late 80s early 90s billboards newspapers prints and other

forms of mass marketing existed but they didn't need any of that they were revolutionizing the game and what followed was even more maverick marketing behavior from them sponsorship of extreme sports athletes and generally death-defying stunts and as we can see

it all worked 1988 the first ever red bull sponsored event a gruelling extreme sports relay race known as the dollar mittenman mountain running paragliding mountain biking whitewater kayaking it's tough stuff 1989 the first red bull sponsored athlete gerhard berger a

former austrian f1 driver sponsorship eventually turned to ownership over the years notably 2005 red bull racing is formed lewis hamilton does not approve this pattern would only continue to perpetuate and keep in mind yes they were building up other revenue streams

and making long-term investments but that was not the end goal at the end of the day the only product this company sells is energy drinks all of this sponsorship all of this virality all of it was and is still done primarily in

the name of selling this caffeinated pick-me-up [Music] which brings us to football 2005 esval austria salzburg an austrian club formed all the way back in 1933. red bull purchased the club and fans were initially feeling a little optimistic

for the future a big company that could potentially bankroll the club and take them to the next level okay let's go but when you make a deal with the devil don't be surprised when he comes to collect red bull immediately went ahead

and changed everything the team's home kit was changed from a purple and white kid to red and white the backroom staff management and even the name changed to align with the brand recognition intentions of the new owners and to make

matters worse upon the takeover and reorganization red bull ceo announced that this is a new club with no history yikes imagine hearing a new owner say that about the 72 year old club you've supported all your life fans were

delivered and protested for red bull to honor their club's history but the only thing they were willing to do was let the goalkeeper wear purple socks at away games oof in retaliation the og fans registered their own club under the same

name as the original one esphal austria salzburg they currently play in the third tier of austrian football if you check the red bull salzburg website you'll see that they have since backtracked on the claims that this is an entirely new club however the damage

was already done it's also worth noting that this wasn't the only time red bull have done something like this albeit to a smaller degree a few months later when purchasing italian f1 racing team minardi change ushered in by red bull

did not impress existing fans over 15 000 people signed a petition to maintain the name and heritage of the team but this was unsuccessful and scuderia toro rosso or team red bull in english was born having said that just to play

devil's advocate here red bull salzburg has been a pretty successful venture for red bull and even the fans that decided to stay on as supporters it's been 16 years since salzburg were taken over in that time frame they have won the

austrian bundesliga 12 times 12. this includes last season and the season before that and the season before that and the season before that you get the idea compare that to three league victories in the 72 years before the

takeover and the line for what we're willing to morally accept begins to blur even more they've also nurtured gems that we all celebrate in world football to this very day early holland tonight you became the youngest player in uefa

music history to score first half hat-trick how are you feeling right now i feel very good jeff sadio mani takumi minamino marcel sabota and daya upamakano form just a small handful of players i'm referring to now question for you if this were to happen to your

club the good and the bad how would you feel about it comment your thoughts below [Music] only one year after the salzburg venture red bull new york came into the fray formerly known as metro stars again a total rebranding that was not

universally accepted by the fan base followed the club was significantly younger than espha orchestra salzburg having only been founded in 1994 so i guess that in conjunction with the vastly different football culture meant that this wasn't as controversial as it

maybe could have been in any case on the pitch this hasn't been a very successful project thus far despite bringing in stars such as thierry henry rafa marquez and others at varying points no league silverware has come their way as of yet

apart from a few supporters shields for the regular season but does that even matter the brand recognition is really what it's all about and owning a football team in the media and advertising capital of the world sounds like a pretty good deal to me

for for red bull that is seeing as it only made sense geographically red bull sites from a footballing perspective had been firmly placed on germany as early as 2006 a search which proved to be fruitless for several years they searched far and wide

throughout deutschland but just couldn't seem to find their way in but before we go further i'd be remiss if i didn't quickly mention germany's 50 plus one ruling taken straight from the bundesliga website 50 plus 1 states the

following under german football league rules football clubs will not be allowed to play in the bundesliga if commercial investors have more than a 49 stake in essence this means that private investors cannot take over clubs and potentially push through measures that

prioritize profits over the wishes of supporters in germany football is for the people corporations and individuals have tried to go the roman ibrahimovic sheikh monsoor muhammad bin salman root in the past and have failed due to the stringent protections put in place

so with that in mind this is a dilemma right the purpose of 50 plus one is to prevent overt marketing and corporate capitalistic ideals from seeping into the game apologies my guys but better luck next time [Laughter] you serious no no no come on we all know

that's not how it went down after being pointed in the right direction by the sort of resources and contacts that only a multi-billion euro company has access to they settled on leipzig a german city which had all the makings of a booming

football hub a sizable population large modern infrastructure and a rich history in football red bull had found their golden egg a golden egg in the form of fifth division side s es val macronstad acquiring a club of course proved to be difficult over the

years for a few reasons a big one was the naming of said club football is for the people remember the club simply cannot have red bull in the name but hang on isn't that the main reason for why they were purchasing the club in the

first place so if they can't put their name on their own advertising conduit then what's the point luckily they have big brains over there the large cranium scientists over at red bull worked day and night drinking their wide eye juice

and came out with a genius name frozen by sport leipzig sounds good right it's got that ring to it it literally translates to lawn ball sports you can't make this up while still outrageous they realize that just the initials rb were

enough to perpetuate their identity meaning their initial intentions were not compromised they went wrong i often forget that they're not officially named red bull leipzig and you'd probably be lying to yourself if you said you didn't and so in 2009 they bought the playing

rights off of ss filemak lanstadt founded rb leipzig and went on an absolute tear making it to the bundesliga in seven years since making it to the top flight they've regularly finished in the top 3 of the bundesliga

and even made the champions league semi-final as recently as 2020 and don't forget the club has only just become a teenager as of 2022 unreal something further to note about rb leipzig's running of the club is the membership

structure while other german clubs allow their members to have voting rights on how the club has run and boast membership numbers in the region of the thousands and hundreds of thousands as recently as 2014 leipzig only had nine

members and get this all of them were either red bull employees or their corporate associates further to that prices for becoming a voting member can go up to a thousand euros and even if you manage to pay the fee of entry the

already existing members have the power of rejecting all applications as they see fit meaning the club is essentially entirely run by red bull before the formation of this club red bull clubs had hardly been universally loved but as for rb leipzig you can all

see why this club gets probably the worst rap out of all of them it essentially stands for everything that german footballing culture despises a corporate run organization but again just to play devil's advocate nobody can deny that this has also been a wildly

successful project german and bundesliga fans please correct me in the comments but from the outside looking in it seems as though red bull has revitalized the footballing spirit of the city of leipzig they've poured hundreds of millions into development of the sport

and have added much needed competition to a league that is solely dominated by bayern munich for the most part and produce their dortmund from time to time they haven't won a major trophy yet but it really does seem like it's only a

matter of time the leipzig central stadium was tenantless when rb moved in back in 2009 and since then high level football has been played there on a consistent basis and even further to that a survey was conducted by the

leipziger fork titan a long-standing local news outlet back in 2009 when the club was formed this survey indicated that at the time over 70 percent of the leipzig population were happy with the new developments although i'm not sure

what that figure looks like today so there is clearly good and there is very clearly bad again if this happened in your city how would you feel and that brings us to the question of the day is red bull good for football

well no but also yes it's a tough question to answer that's like most questions does not have only one answer it's no secret that red bull's main goal is to sell energy drinks not change lives or make the world a better place these things do

happen as a result of their endeavors don't get me wrong but if they weren't selling these bad boys i doubt they would bother which to me honestly i might be crucified for this but i think it's fine even if it's not their

intention they are doing some good in the world they have changed lives there are likely countless people that have gainful employment thanks to their involvement in the sport players that have been given the chance to shine in europe and cities that have been subject

to positive change regardless of their intention you can't discount these aspects and just a general note for this video i'm not defending red bull's behavior they've clearly breached the footballing culture of several nations thus far and rightly deserve the

backlash but at the same time i'm not german or austrian so i can't speak on it on an emotional level all i'm trying to do here is provide context for both sides from the perspective of someone who's not physically on the ground there

just thought i'd leave that bit in there other football projects of theirs include red bull ghana which was founded in 2008 and disbanded in 2013. many young men got a chance to move to europe off the back of this club despite its

ultimate shutting down and failure red bull brazil and more recently red bull bragantino are brazil-based sides with the latter having just been promoted to the top division of brazilian football we'll be watching them with great interest and even more recently in 2021

red bull have sponsored vietnamese club huang an football club i already know i've butchered that name but anyway we move but like i said i'm looking in from the outside anyone with a red bull team in your backyard or anyone without one

really let me know what you think anyway that's all from me today this one was really fun to make hope you all enjoyed hope you're all staying safe cheers and i'll catch you in the next one