GIt’s been a year since Gernot Tripcke seemed sober. The German Ice Hockey League (DEL) was in its second Corona season, which should be something like a new start after a year without an indoor audience. But then one wave of infection after another rushed through the cabins, sometimes half a game day was canceled. “You have to improvise a lot and you can’t plan for the long term. Sometimes the problem is with the health of the players, sometimes with the spectators, sometimes we discuss whether we can play at all,” said Tripcke at the time. He looked to the future with concern.
This week, the DEL managing director spoke again into a laptop camera. Digital press round, the main round ends on Sunday, time for an interim conclusion. And the head of the league announced that in a good mood. “We all don’t know what’s happening with the energy crisis and the global economy, but the Corona issue is over,” said Tripcke and presented suitable figures: Around 2.5 million fans are said to have come to the stadiums for the play-offs, that would be around 6000 on average.
It’s still a little less than before Corona, “but many of us expected it to be worse”. Especially since some clubs had up to 35 percent fewer visitors in autumn than in the 2019/20 season. But since mid-November it has “improved extremely,” said Tripcke, who assumes total income of between 130 and 140 million euros. That would also be about the pre-corona level – although the DEL is currently playing with one more team.
More attention brings more customers
Stefan Thelen from TV partner Telekom was similarly satisfied. Almost 19 million people have already followed DEL games via Magentasport. The record from the previous season (20 million) will fall in the play-offs. What he attributes to the pandemic on the one hand: Corona gave an “enormous boost to sports streaming services”. Now the people have stayed with it. In addition, broadcasters, leagues and clubs publish more moving images on social media. A few years ago there was hardly a goal or body check for free on the internet. That kept people from paying for subscriptions, that was the thinking at the time. In the meantime, it has become apparent that more attention in social media brings more customers to the paid offers.
DEL Managing Director Gernot Tripcke: “The Corona issue is over.”
:
Image: dpa
They have been able to experience an exciting main round so far. It was only decided early on at the top and bottom. Red Bull Munich is the top of the table, the Bietigheim Steelers are relegated. The 14th is also clear, the Augsburg Panthers. But they now have to wait weeks to see whether the champions of the second division meet the DEL license requirements.
Only then can he rise, only then will Augsburg go down. And there are other unanswered questions: Will the tumbling Mannheimers still lose their home advantage in the quarter-finals? Will the surprisingly stable team from Düsseldorf make it straight into the last eight or will they be intercepted by old rivals from Cologne? Will newly promoted Frankfurt play play-offs in their first year? Even after 58 out of 60 match days everything is unclear.
But the biggest question: Does the Eisbären Berlin season end on Sunday? For months, the champion of the two previous years was in crisis, in between even in a relegation battle. But recently things went better again, they are still two points short of tenth place and thus the first play-off round. That can be caught up in a weekend.
Gernot Tripcke would like to experience that. At least in his role as a man who keeps an eye on the account: “If we talk in the fall, it’s easier for me to comment on playoff dates when a team with 13,000 spectators is playing than one with 4000. But like that is the sport,” said Tripcke, who can definitely live with struggling champions and outsiders in the play-offs. Especially when he sees where his league was a year ago.
