I was at the store picking up medicine and I see a box of medicine called Bayer and it had the same Bayer badge on it too, which came first and is it one company?

  • Ubergold@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    2 things people outside Germany should know:

    1. When Xabi Alonso is cooking, he is cooking the good stuff.

    2. When you are wearing a Bayer Leverkusen kit in a German pharmacy, every product is 10% off. Except heroin.

  • LNhart@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Bayer is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, with a stories history that includes the economic miracle post WW2, commercialising heroin, being merged into IG Farben and producing Zyklon B for the gas chambers in concentration camps, IG Farben broken up and Bayer being recreated, inventing Aspirin (what you probably saw in the pharmacy), acquiring Monsanto and being tied to a football club that achieved lots of second places.

    Bayer Leverkusen 04 was started as a works team by employees of the company as a way for them to be physically active and isn’t limited to just football. Of course, the footballing division has since outgrown its amateur status. But the club is still owned by Bayer.

      • keinohrhamid23@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Around the late 40s and early 50s, when the team went up to the second division. Some of them still worked for Bayer, but it wasn’t a necessity anymore.

        In the 60s, when Bundesliga was originally formed, the teams became more professional and the number of employed players sank down.

        • hipdozgabba@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          Let me rephrase it, I didn’t mean employees playing for the team but players getting contracted by the company.

          Edit: I don’t mean employees playing for the team but other players contracted by the company so they could play for the team

      • phuxr@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Used to be a thing, i would guess till late 60s and maybe even early 70s. Leverkusen wasn’t promoted to the first devision until 1978/79. I think Falko Götz even said something about securing a Job after football when he fleed from the DDR and joined Leverkusen

    • MikeBishere@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Definitely not one of the largest Pharma companies in the world. I’m not even sure if they are top 20 anymore.

    • Otherwise_Soil39@alien.top
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      1 year ago

      Yo I thought this was a “shitpost” because obviously not, obviously that’s just a common name… Dang.

    • barathrumobama@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      It’s still funny to me how you can be owned by a literal evil megacorp and no one bats an eye as long as you dont win anything

  • Gand00lf@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    By this logic Monsanto would be the most expensive transfer in history. It is also a really bad one considering Monsanto played exactly 0 minutes of professional football for Bayer.

  • pahu92@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Bayer bought Bayer Leverkusen and also the state bayer-n. Then they brandet it with their name.

  • Far-Benefit3031@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Given the other answers seem to be trolling. I’ll give you a bit of the history.

    Bayer in a chemical and pharmaceutical company (they bought for instance Monsanto a few years ago) that originated in Wuppertal, Germany but Wuppertal is effectively just a small valley with no space for big production plants.

    So Bayer built a factory in Leverkusen, a very small town back then with little to no relevance except the space it offered. Nowadays, it’s the heart of the German chemical industry, more or less. But Bayer made the start. That was about 1900.

    The soccer club Bayer 04 Leverkusen came into existence as an afterwork hobby for the people working there.

    It’s a so called Werkself (“factory eleven”) similar to Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg doesn’t have VW in the name but it was originally a team that solely consisted of VW workers. That is why only these two clubs theoretically are allowed to have a company name because it’s their historic origin.

    That is for instance why RB Leipzig is so looked down upon they were a small club that got artificially pumped up with money and then tried to trick their way around the naming rules by naming themselves “Rasenballsport Leipzig.” After “Red Bull Leipzig” was denied

    Schalke 04 was a miner’s club but not for an individual coal mine but all coal mines in Gelsenkirchen. Schalke was only the part of Gelsenkirchen they had their pitch. But that too originally was an afterwork hobby.

    I’m sure I missed several clubs with similar origins. Probably all clubs that are 100 years and older.