Update from the Chancellor: Academic Adventures & Expeditions September 2023

• Visit to the Belly of the Whale – Allianz Arena / FC Bayern Museum
• Academic Expedition to the Oktoberfest
• Why Business Ethics are important? The Business Fraud of Donald Trump

Dear Friends of New European College,

Apart from us humans being wondrous creatures, we live in an amazing world.

A world that provides us with exciting business adventures, academic expeditions, and the ludicrous behavior of some business leaders.

As an academic institution we must balance between the theoretical world and the real world and this month we had the great opportunity to expose our students to three real life examples of successful business ventures, Allianz Arena, the FC Bayern Museum, and the Oktoberfest.

Visit to the Belly of the Whale – Allianz Arena / FC Bayern Museum

Visiting the Allianz Arena & FC Bayern Museum during Project Week our students entered the belly of one of the world’s most successful sports venues – the playing ground of FC Bayern.

At beginning of the visit, the sheer dimensions of the empty Allianz Arena were overwhelming, but once that had settled, and the students started looking beyond the dominance of the omnipresent brand FC Bayern, they discovered the impressive business model encompassing the Allianz Arena, the FC Bayern Museum and FC Bayern itself.

The economic success of FC Bayern is best displayed if you look at their annual report for 2021/22. Despite it being a Corona year and many matches had no audience, FC Bayern ended the year with a profit of € 12 million before taxes.

• Revenue 21/22 of FC Bayern € 665,700,000
• Revenue 21/22 from merchandising € 93,600,000
• Revenue 21/22 from games € 159,500,000
• Profit 21/22 of FC Bayen before taxes: € 12,000,000
• Profit 21/22 of Allianz Arena München Stadion GmbH: € 4,800,000

To learn more about our academic adventure to Allianz Arena – just click here.

Academic Expedition to Oktoberfest 
 
In general, when we think of the Oktoberfest, we think of beer. Especially, considering it being the world’s biggest beer festival that would seem obvious. No doubt, beer plays a significant role at Oktoberfest, considering that despite 2022 being a Corona year 5.6 million liters of beer were served by 5.7 million visitors.

• 2019 holds the beer consumption record of 7,85 million liters of beer – enough to get 600,000 elephants drunk…
• 1985 holds the record for visitors with 7.1 million visitors.

Opposite to what most people the think at the first Oktoberfest beer was not at the center of attention. It was the marriage in 1810 of Crown Prince Ludwig 1st of Bavaria to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. During the wedding, the city’s citizens were invited to participate in the festivities, which took place in the fields, at that time, in front of the city gates.
 
The festival included a horse race, and while beer was available, the focus wasn’t primarily on beer consumption for the very first event. However, over the years, the horse race was discontinued, and the festival began to place more emphasis on beer and the accompanying festivities. As the years progressed, beer tents and halls set up by enterprising landlords became a central part of the celebration, leading to the beer-centric Oktoberfest that we know today.
 
Nowadays, it is a money-making machine, if you consider that it generates a revenue of € 1.23 billion (1,230,000,000) in 16 days.
 
So as a business school we must visit it. Not only for the beer and the good food, but to understand the business. And that we did.
 
Faculty and students together enjoyed an evening of active academic research at the Oktoberfest, which was accompanied by Oktoberfest beer and the delicacies of the Bavarian kitchen. Academic life at its best.
 
To find out more about our academic excursion to the Oktoberfest, please click here.
 
Ethical Business – the 200% overvaluation of Donald Trump
 
In these wondrous times all you need to do to make sure that you incorporate the real world is to read the news. But seldom is there a blatant example of no business ethics as in the case of Donald Trump. This week Mr. Trump was found liable for fraud, apart from the four criminal cases already against him. The most outstanding fact about this case is that he claimed that his apartment at Trump Tower is three times bigger than it is, which led to an overvaluation in the range of $114 million to $ 207 million. My favorite statement by the judge, “Mr. Trump lives in fantasy world, not the real world”.
 

For business schools it is mandatory to highlight business ethics in all our courses. And sadly, thanks to people like Donald Trump it is easy to give students real life current examples of unethical business behavior. The case of Mr. Trump constitutes a bad businessperson.

Don’t forget he has had 6 bankruptcies before 2020, and the endless amount of court cases against have cost him alone in 2023 $ 40 million.
 
Concluding, I am thankful that we in Munich have the opportunity of offering enriching excursions to our students, exploring the business acumen at Allianz Arena, the unique economy of Oktoberfest.

These experiences, bridging theory with real-world business scenarios, underscore our commitment to providing an experiential educational journey. The contrasting lessons from FC Bayern’s success to Mr. Trump’s business misadventures are invaluable in shaping the conscience and critical thinking of our students.

Best regards,

Sascha Liebhardt