A look at why Bayern Munich are the world's best-supported club as they move past 400,000 members
Bayern Munich's club membership has risen to 400,000, the most in world football. bundesliga.com takes a look at their path to success and a giant fanbase.
Bayern, Germany's record champions, are celebrating their 125th anniversary. Alongside that landmark, they also now boast 400,000 registered members, which makes them the best-supported club in the world by that measure, outstripping fellow European juggernauts Benfica.
"We're experiencing an unprecedented increase in membership," said club president Herbert Hainer. "FC Bayern stands for sporting success, financial common sense and social commitment. In addition, we've increasingly intensified the dialogue with our members and fans in recent years. The club is approachable, which resonates with people. We can all be proud of FC Bayern and its members."
German champions a record 33 times - one of which came before the Bundesliga's foundation in 1963 - the Bavarians once counted Pope Benedict XVI as a fan. Boris Becker and Wladimir Klitschko are among their celebrity supporters today. Die Roten are one of the biggest teams in the sport by any reasonable measure. But it was not ever thus.
Founded in 1900 by members of a Munich gymnastics organisation disaffected with the body's decision to block footballers within the club joining the Deutscher Fussball-Bund [German Football Association], Bayern spent their formative years slowly making their way up the South German football league system, amid little fanfare.
Indeed, when the regional leagues in Germany were consolidated into the Bundesliga in 1963, Bayern were not invited to join.
Today, city rivals 1860 Munich exist firmly in the shadows of their illustrious neighbours, but back then it was 1860 who were the top dogs in the city, winning the Oberliga South that year, four points and two places clear of Bayern.
In 1963, Bayern had one league title and one DFB Cup in their not-yet-glistening trophy cabinet.
1860 had won the highest division available to them three times and had picked up their first German Cup 15 years earlier than Bayern. 1860 were asked to be Munich's representatives in the new national league. Bayern stayed at home.
However, a seemingly trivial event four years earlier had set the wheels in motion for something that changed the course of both clubs' footballing histories forever.
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A certain Franz Beckenbauer grew up as an 1860 supporter, recounting in Ulrich Hesse's 2002 book Tor!: The Story of German Football: "It was always my dream to play for them."
The two-time FIFA World Cup-winning sweeper and then coach was an aspiring centre-forward in 1959, playing U14 football and hoping to one day emulate the great Fritz Walter.
Beckenbauer and his SC Munich '06 team-mates had reportedly planned to join the 1860 youth academy together at the end of that season, knowing that their own club was running out of finances and planning to discontinue their team.
However, a meeting with 1860 in the final of a youth tournament in the south of the city changed all that. The 1860 centre-half and Beckenbauer got into a physical altercation, and a matter of months later, Der Kaiser, as he would come to be known, was on the books at Bayern instead.
Bayern went on to win four league titles, four German Cups and three European Cups in Beckenbauer's 13 years in the first team, with a side that featured fellow 1974 world champions Sepp Maier in goal, Paul Breitner variously at left-back and midfield and Gerd Müller up front.
Since the late 1960s and 1970s, Bayern's success, built on that platform, has continued unabated, with the club now boasting 20 German Cups and 32 Bundesliga titles - both records.
Bayern have also been in 11 European Cup/UEFA Champions League finals, and completed the intercontinental sextuple as recently as 2020 under Hansi Flick.
Naturally, success begets success, and on scanning the landscape of the global game it is clear that the most successful team and the best-supported club in a country are often one and the same, from Peñarol in Uruguay and Galatasaray in Türki̇ye to Juventus in Italy and Manchester United in England.
Part of the charm of Bayern, though, is that they are not governed by one single financial backer, with the 50-plus-1 rule in Germany meaning the club is owned in large part by its members, in contrast to clubs in England's Premier League, for example.
Watch: 125 years of Bayern
There are clubs in Germany with one primary backer. Bayer Leverkusen are underpinned by pharmaceutical giants Bayer, Wolfsburg are owned by car manufacturer Volkswagen, RB Leipzig by Austrian drinks company Red Bull, and Hoffenheim ascended to the Bundesliga in 2008 thanks in large part to software billionaire Dietmar Hopp.
Bayern have never needed to operate in this way, even if they now count Audi and adidas among their investors, and their teams to this day are peppered with players raised at the FC Bayern Campus. Just as Beckenbauer led the team to success at home and abroad 50 years ago, so now do the likes of Jamal Musiala, Alphonso Davies and Aleksandar Pavlović.
Over the last 20 years, Bayern have surrendered a few Bundesliga titles - to Wolfsburg in 2009, Borussia Dortmund's Jürgen Klopp-inspired successes in 2011 and 2012, and to Xabi Alonso's invincible Leverkusen last season - but they have largely maintained their position at the top of the Bundesliga, and they remain the best advert for the German model of ownership.
The Bayern team today boasts some of the greatest players in the world, with England captain Harry Kane one of the most feared strikers in the game. The nascent Musiala and Davies were joined by Michael Olise last summer, who has hit the ground running since his arrival from Crystal Palace.
Crucially, the fans can afford to see these stars in action, with ticket prices comparable to teams even a division or two down in some other countries.
Bayern are a club who ascended against the odds, enjoy a strong team identity infused with youth academy products, and have turned cleaning the trophy cabinet at the Allianz Arena into a full-time job in its own right.
When youngsters today muse about "always dreaming to play for them," it is little wonder that, unlike in 1959, they are invariably referring to the red half of Munich.
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