Are YOU a Bayern Munich fan? BFW is hiring writers and podcasters! (UPDATE!)

Bayern Munich is a club that never stands still, which makes covering it a round-the-clock effort. We here at Bavarian Football Works love that, because it gives us something to do. In the last few years though, the scope of that “something” has ballooned into an unimaginably huge undertaking. We’ve got so much happening right now, from news to analysis to multiple podcasts and so much else, that it’s hard to keep up.

We need help.

The thing, us folks here at BFW aren’t journalists — we’re just a bunch of fans talking about the club we love. And that’s the exact kind of person we’re looking for. If you wanna join our team, keep reading.

Who should apply?

Bayern Munich fans, first and foremost. If you’re not a Bayern fan, then I’m sorry — you should probably look elsewhere. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and the folks who excel are the ones invested in the club.

We’ve had some AMAZING writers join this place and they’ve almost always had to drop out because their heart wasn’t in it. Look, this stuff gets tiring sometimes. Only your love of the club keeps you going.

In the end we’re not looking for super exceptional tacticians or folks with years of experience with online writing or content creation. We’re just looking for guys and gals with a burning passion for Bayern Munich. That’s rule #1. Everything else is secondary. That being said, here’s a list of some requirements. If you meet or exceed these criteria, consider applying:

Minimum requirements:

• Being an avid watcher of Bayern Munich games (at least the first team — Frauen and youth is a bonus).
• A willingness to work with others and communicate with them openly.
• Time to actually commit to your writing. It’s not a 9-5 job, but you’ll need a few free hours a week and some extra on matchdays.
• A good grasp of the English language, so you can write articles.
• Opinions about the club and a desire to share them.

Nice to haves:

• Prior writing or editorial experience.
• German language knowledge.
• Differing takes. If you’ve disagreed with our opinions in the past, that’s great news! We’re always looking for dissenting opinions, it keeps things interesting.

Stuff that doesn’t matter:

• Your age. We’ve got folks who are teenagers and at least one 200-year-old immortal who remembers Gerd Muller’s debut. I was 18 when I started this gig, now I’m 23. A lack of experience doesn’t matter, personally I learned everything AFTER getting the job.
• Your location. We’ve got writers from quite literally all over the world. We’ll work around your time zone, no issue.
• Your race/gender/sexual orientation/etc. I think this goes without saying, but Bayern fans are a family. As long as you support Bayern, you’re welcome here.

What do we need?

Basically everything!

• Regular news coverage, from breaking news to injury updates to Frauen and Campus news and everything else.
• Game coverage. Match observations, match awards, tactical analyses (if you’re good at them), reaction pieces. Basically everything that comes out in the hours following a game.
• Editing help. If you can help us edit articles before they go out, that would be huge!
• Opinion pieces. We need lots of these.

Please note, if you wanna write here, you’ll need to help out with a bit of everything. Of course it’s fine to pick and choose, we’re not gonna make you write an editorial on the Frauen if you don’t know anything about the women’s team, but you can’t just exclusively write opinion pieces and never help out with news/matchday coverage. That’s not gonna fly.

Will I get paid!

Short answer: YES! Long answer: It’s complicated. Keep reading.

• If you’re looking for something to pay the bills, this ain’t it. We don’t make much money here. Ultimately, this is a hobby for ALL of us, and that’s what we’re paid for.
• DON’T take time away from your job/school/family to write for us, it isn’t worth it. This only makes sense if you’re already spending hours each week obsessing over Bayern Munich, and would like to covert that into a chill side-gig.
• There will be a probation period for new writers. Six weeks — during which time we’ll evaluate not just your writing but how you communicate with the team and how you get the job done. If you do amazingly well, we could even drop the probation period early.

Perks!

• There are no hours! This isn’t an office job. But we do expect you to be watching games and taking a few hours a week to write something for us. A 250 word news piece takes 30 minutes to write, two or three of those a week and you’re all set. Oh, and you need to watch games — which if you’re a Bayern fan, should come automatically.
• Vacations are whenever. If you have exams, take a few weeks off! I’ve done it myself. If you’re on the payroll, you’ll keep getting paid in the meantime. Just remember to come back.
• We’ve got a huge audience. Tired that your 500 word rant only got 30 upvotes on Reddit? Post it on our blog for the world to see!
• Anonymity — you don’t have to share anything about yourself, not even your name. Except for the site manager, no one needs to know who you are and you can still get paid.
• Portfolio building — alternatively, if you have a budding career in journalism, BFW is a good way to gain experience (and maybe notoriety?) while earning a little extra on the side. We’ve had journalism students make breakthroughs with us before.

Podcaster info

You can join the writing team without being on the podcasting team, and you can join the podcasting team without being on the writing team. However, a podcaster will need to be at least comfortable with doing some writing, since you will need to write the accompanying podcast article.

Pay: Like with the writing gig, there will be a probation period and then a shift into the pay structure of the podcast group.

Experience: Experience with sound editing software is appreciated, but we’ll teach you to use Audacity if you don’t have any.

Audio: You don’t need a baller audio setup just to get started. Whatever basic headphones you have will work just fine. It’ll sound crappy but we all sounded crappy at first. Your submission will be judged on your ability to speak, not the quality of your sound.

Submissions

For writers, submit a couple of samples of your work to bavarianfootballworks1@gmail.com with the subject “Writer application”. We could use one post match piece in the format of our Match Observations or Match Awards, as well as one opinion piece. Minimum article length is 150 words. Say whatever you like, don’t stress, and make sure your unique voice comes through.

For podcasters, pay attention:

• Submit an mp3 recording of a post match review of any of our last three games of the season — Wolfsburg, Stuttgart, or Mainz. The subject of the email should have “Podcaster application” included.
• Minimum recording time should be 11 minutes. No hard maximum, but let’s keep it within reason please? 20 minutes tops.
• Edited or unedited audio will be evaluated the same way. We can teach you to edit after you join us. Your voice, the way you articulate yourself, the talking points you bring to the discussion, your ability to express your opinion — that’s all you, and that’s what we’ll be listening to.

You can apply for both a podcasting AND writing position in one application. Both pay separately and your performance in one is evaluated independently of the other.

Things to include in your application (if you want to):

• About you.
• Why you became a Bayern fan.
• Why do you want to write for us?
• How often can you contribute?
• Your SB Nation username (if you have one).
• Any experience or skills you think could be relevant (such as German language knowledge or editorial experience).

Is there a deadline for our offer? Nope! Keep sending in applications, we’ll only stop accepting them when all positions are filled. How many positions are available? That depends on the applicants themselves! There’s a certain amount of “Bayern stuff” we want to cover each month, and we’ll try to keep hiring until that gap is filled (or our budget runs out).

That being said, there’s no time like the present! Apply NOW!

Any questions? Put them in the comments section.

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Update

We’ve just started going through the first batch of applications. If you’ve sent in yours, sit tight, we’re going to start looking at them one by one. We got quite a few apps already.

In case you haven’t and are still planning on sending one in, it could take us a little while to get to yours. Please be patient.