Club ProfileAnnex

Steckbrief – Facts, figures and milestones

Turn- und Sportgemeinschaft Hoffenheim 1899 e. V. (TSG 1899 Hoffenheim for short) is based in the Sinsheim district of Hoffenheim, Baden-Württemberg. Founded in 1899, the club has approximately 11,400 members (as of December 2019), making it one of the smaller Bundesliga clubs by membership.

The club's football department was spun off into TSG 1899 Hoffenheim Fußball-Spielbetriebs GmbH, based in Zuzenhausen, in 2005. The men's first team has played in the Bundesliga since 2008/09. Home matches are played at the Rhein-Neckar-Arena (PreZero Arena) in Sinsheim, opened in January 2009; before that, the Dietmar-Hopp-Stadion in Hoffenheim and the Carl-Benz-Stadion in Mannheim served as venues. The Rhein-Neckar-Arena has a capacity of 30,150.

SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp held 96 per cent of the shares in TSG 1899 Hoffenheim Fußball-Spielbetriebs GmbH as of December 2019, controlling both club and company. This was possible because he had already supported TSG Hoffenheim for more than 20 years at the time of the takeover, enabling him to assume the majority of voting rights in July 2015 despite the DFB's 50+1 rule.

Like many German clubs, TSG Hoffenheim emerged from a gymnastics club. Gymnastics, far more popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was initially the main pillar. In the late 1920s, a handball section was created — field handball, as was customary at the time. When field handball was supplanted by indoor handball, the section was dissolved in the early 1970s due to the lack of a suitable hall.