Borussia Dortmund managing director Carsten Cramer made no secret about his dismay when asked whether Bundesliga clubs are doing enough to market the league abroad. “The Premier League is generating more than a billion Euros more than us internationally, but then at the same time, there are 12 Premier League clubs traveling around the world in the summer while we have just us and Bayern on the road,” Cramer said in an interview published on the weekend.

Those statements were made as part of Borussia Dortmund’s US Tour where the club played local side San Diego Loyal (6-0) at Snapdragon Stadium, Manchester United (3-2) at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, and then Chelsea (1-1) at Soldier Field in Chicago.

Cramer’s statements were underlined by Borussia Dortmund’s CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke on Wednesday when he spoke to a select group of journalists in a roundtable format. “Cramer, I and the entire club always speak with one voice,” Watzke said when asked about Cramer’s comments. “Herbert Hainer, the president of Bayern Munich, said the same this week. We are working to convince other clubs to go to the USA or Asia.”

At Bayern, it wasn’t just Hainer to speak out but also Bayern’s chief marketing officer Andreas Jung. "It's the same every year,” Jung said to a group of journalist on Bayern’s Asia tour. “Only us and Borussia Dortmund go on tour. That's a pity. 18 out of 20 Premier League teams go on marketing tours. We can't just sit there and say that England gets more TV money than us." That gap of TV money according to Dortmund’s Cramer, is now more than $1 billion. A gap that will be hard to make up but the decision-makers at Bayern and Dortmund are adamant that other Bundesliga clubs need to do more to ensure the gap is not growing.

Other clubs have come to the United States recently. Leverkusen, Stuttgart, and Köln played games in the United States during the World Cup. Kaiserslautern played games in Louisville and Minnesota. But the big clubs, Bayern and Dortmund, want an even bigger presence, especially in a time when the Premier League, LaLiga, and Serie A have increased their presence in the United States significantly.

“For the smaller clubs, such a trip isn’t that easy,” Watzke said. “When you do a trip like we did to the USA, you have high costs. Smaller clubs don’t have the revenue to make such a trip. That’s why we wanted to make a deal with some investors that would give us the money that would help smaller clubs to go to the US, Asia, or Africa. But the league refused.”

Watzke is referring to a plan that would have seen the Bundesliga sell a small part of its foreign media rights to an investor. The Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) hoped to generate in the region of $2.7 billion with such a deal. But the deal failed to get the two-thirds majority necessary for the deal to pass. “We needed 24 votes and only got 20 for the plan to go through,” Watzke said about the failed deal. “We must give the smaller clubs some money so that they can go to these bigger markets.”

The Dortmund boss, however, stressed that the other bigger Bundesliga clubs like RB Leipzig, Eintracht Frankfurt, and Borussia Mönchengladbach also have to pull their weight when it comes to marketing the league abroad. Watzke stressed that Bayern Munich and Dortmund have been pulling most of the weight and that the other Bundesliga clubs must finally start to pull their weight to make the league more interesting for foreign observers.

There is now a clear message by Bayern and Dortmund. They have been pulling the weight when it comes to marketing the Bundesliga abroad, and other clubs must follow suit, especially after a big portion of clubs voted down an investor deal that would have brought much-needed investment in German football overall.

Manuel Veth is the host of the Bundesliga Gegenpressing Podcast and the Area Manager USA at Transfermarkt. He has also been published in the Guardian, Newsweek, Howler, Pro Soccer USA, and several other outlets. Follow him on Twitter: @ManuelVeth and on Threads: @manuveth