Axel Gernert

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Axel Gernert (born August 24, 1956 in Güstrow ) is a German entrepreneur as well as a former journalist and American football functionary.

career

Gernert, born in 1956 to parents living in Hamburg (mother: real estate agent, father: car mechanic and motorcycle racing driver), was a trainee for the Bild newspaper from 1978 , later he worked as a journalist for Sport Bild and the Hamburger Morgenpost .

As early as the late 1970s, Gernert had come into contact with American football as a spectator of games by the Hamburg Dolphins , whose roster included his brother Lutz , as well as during a holiday at a preparatory game between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams . In 1987 he took over the management of the Hamburg Silver Eagles team, which was coached by a friend . Gernert, who at the time worked for an advertising company, was described as representing a “new generation of German sports marketers in the 1990s”. He drew the home games of the Silver Eagles on the model of American football events as a spectacle.

In 1989 he was involved in organizing the European Football Championship in Germany, in 1992 he was one of the founders of the Hamburg Blue Devils and became club president. The Blue Devils initially did not take part in the organized American football game operation in Germany: Gernert created a "Masters" game series ("Schweppes Cool Masters") in 1992, in the context of which the Hamburg games were played and, among others, against opponents from the Netherlands and Russia met. Gernert led the games again based on the model of football games in the USA and hired cheerleaders from the United States , among other things . From 1993 onwards he organized the annual charity game "Charity Bowl" in Hamburg 's Volksparkstadion (1998 in Millerntorstadion ), in which the Hamburg team competed against international opponents (mostly university teams from the United States) and which sometimes attracted more than 15,000 spectators. The Blue Devils were happy to take part in the Football League of Europe (FLE) he founded at the end of 1993 , which also included teams from the Netherlands, England, Finland and Sweden. With this league, Gernert drew the anger of representatives of the German football association AFVD , who complained, among other things, that the FLE was only aimed at commercial goals. The FLE, of which Gernert was president, ran into financial difficulties in 1994, as did the Blue Devils. After the 1994 season, Gernert withdrew with the Blue Devils from the FLE and negotiated an agreement with the AFVD to receive a starting place for his Hamburg team in the top German division in the 1995 season by expanding the field of Bundesliga participants.

During Gernert's tenure as President of the Blue Devils, Hamburg, whose home games in the Volksparkstadion were attended by more than 30,000 spectators, won the German championship in 1996 and the Eurobowl in 1996, 1997 and 1998 . The stadium question proved to be difficult again and again: After the German championship title in 1996, which the Hamburg team won by winning the final against Düsseldorf in front of 19,700 spectators in the Volksparkstadion, Gernert built a privately financed football stadium with a capacity of around 15,000 seats Hamburg Volkspark in conversation. This idea was never implemented.

The newspaper Die Welt called Gernert the "almighty president" of the Blue Devils. Among other things, he relied on a high media presence of his team, turned the Blue Devils into a brand and, according to the daily newspaper , operated "the sport as a tough, calculating businessman". Gernert, who was repeatedly accused of a lack of transparency in the management of the Blue Devils business, declared in 2000: "American football needs options for presentation". The Hamburger Abendblatt rated Gernert's work in August 2000 as follows: "Without him and his ideas, football in Hamburg would never have achieved popularity and status [...]." According to Die Welt , Gernert was a "successful visionary with a desire for a big performance".

With his company Gernert Medien Beratung (GMB), which later went bankrupt, Gernert was responsible for hosting the Eurobowl from 1998 to 2000 and the final of the German Championship ( German Bowl ) from 1996 to 1999 . He was credited with having "significantly shaped" the rise of American football in Germany. In the summer of 2000 Gernert announced that the Blue Devils had run out of money, in September 2000 he announced his resignation as President of the Blue Devils and moved his company GMB, which was also responsible for the distribution of fan articles for the Hamburg team, back from football. At that time, the team was plagued by great economic worries, including a stadium rent of DM 300,000 for the Volkspark Stadium. Gernert called the decision to resign "probably the hardest of my life".

From 2002, Gernert and the company CJ Projektmanagement Hamburg GmbH organized the HSH Nordbank Run , a fun run in Hamburg's Hafencity . From 2004 Gernert played a key role in the planning and implementation of events relating to the arrival of the Queen Mary 2 cruise ship in Hamburg, which attracted around 300,000 people at its premiere in June 2004 and more than half a million people in 2005.

In October 2012, the Blue Devils announced Gernert's return that he would work as a consultant for the Hamburg club, the club said. The following month, however, Gernert canceled the hamburgers.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/2014/pdf/20140809.pdf/HAHP20140809lf017.pdf
  2. ↑ https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article506695/Erverbindlicher-Visionaer-mit-der-Lust-am-grossen-Auftritt.html
  3. ↑ a b c https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/2000/pdf/20000803.pdf/HAHA20000803lf0000130.pdf
  4. ↑ a b Peter Glauche: Successful visionary with a desire to make a big entrance . In: THE WORLD . March 10, 2000 ( welt.de [accessed January 28, 2020]).
  5. ^ A b c d Lars Dzikus: American Football in West Germany . In: Annette R. Hofmann (Ed.): Turnen and Sport: Transatlantic Transfers . Waxmann Verlag GmbH, Münster 2004, ISBN 978-3-8309-1381-8 , p. 221-237 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Axel Gernert. In: football-hall-of-fame.de. Retrieved January 24, 2020 .
  7. ↑ andreas hoffmann: media vortex . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 26, 1992, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 36 ( taz.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  8. ↑ http://www.fk-hbd.de/HBD2013-180515.pdf
  9. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1993/pdf/19930614.pdf/ASV_HAB_19930614_HA_019.pdf
  10. ↑ a b E. Feindt: A Blue Angel of Innocence? In: The daily newspaper: taz . February 19, 1994, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 41 ( taz.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  11. ↑ Edwin Feindt: Waiting for the money . In: The daily newspaper: taz . June 17, 1994, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 25 ( taz.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  12. ↑ Edwin Feindt: A big step forward . In: The daily newspaper: taz . March 24, 1995, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 24 ( taz.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  13. ↑ Achim Leoni: 1999 in the Volkspark: Then Klong did it! June 7, 2013, accessed on January 24, 2020 (German).
  14. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1996/pdf/19961007.pdf/ASV_HAB_19961007_HA_017.pdf
  15. ↑ Alexander Becker: Hamburg's Blue Devils: Once in Hell and back again . In: THE WORLD . March 11, 2001 ( welt.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  16. ↑ Lars Levelow: The devils are more professional . In: The daily newspaper: taz . July 8, 1996, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 19 ( taz.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  17. ↑ Edwin Feindt: With the Blue Devils, the game becomes a party . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 18, 1995, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 19 ( taz.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  18. ↑ Carsten Harms: The Axel Gernert Case - From Boss to Whipping Boy . In: THE WORLD . August 22, 2000 ( welt.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  19. ↑ Eberhard Spohd: “50 marks. We can use that ” . In: The daily newspaper: taz . May 4, 2001, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 24 ( taz.de [accessed January 25, 2020]).
  20. ↑ Axel Gernert announces withdrawal from the football business. Retrieved January 24, 2020 .
  21. ↑ Alexander Becker: Blue Devils without a guide . In: THE WORLD . September 4, 2000 ( welt.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  22. ^ Sabine Tesche: HSH Nordbank Run gets a new name. February 12, 2019, accessed on January 24, 2020 (German).
  23. ↑ Ex-President Gernert returns to the Devils. Retrieved January 24, 2020 .
  24. ↑ Kick Off Magazine. In: facebook.com. Retrieved January 24, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Gernert, Axel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and American football official
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Guestrow