Borussia Dortmund does it, Bayern Munich does it, Manchester City anyway and now Schalke 04 too: a club documentary on the streaming service. RTL will broadcast a six-part long-term documentary in autumn, for which FC Schalke 04 was accompanied for a season on their way back to the Bundesliga. According to RTL, “Schalke 04 – zurück zum Wir” is designed as an “authentic portrait” that also shows the upheaval that the traditional club has gone through. “We want to offer football fans a new home on RTL, with exclusive games from the Uefa Europa League and Uefa Europa Conference League, but also with documentaries about heroes of German football,” says Frauke Neeb, program director of RTL.

For Schalke O4 there is still a long way to go in the Euro League, even close to Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City or Bayern, but the traditional club with a strong fan base should still be a driving force for the streaming service.

“Our club can look back on a historic season in many respects. Despite all the uncertainties and worries about the future, the club management made the courageous decision in spring 2021, when relegation hurt and hardly anyone dared to dream of an acclaimed comeback, to have the biggest upheaval in the club’s history captured on film, a stroke of luck with today’s knowledge.” says Bernd Schröder, CEO of Schalke 04. The documentary series is being produced by Warner Bros. ITVP Germany.

Most recently, in autumn 2021, Amazon Prime released the video “FC Bayern – Behind the Legend”, a six-part documentary series about the history and present of the record champions, which actually followed the players into the changing rooms and cold chambers, but then less investigative-critical, because quite reverent.