The German Fistball League launched an inititative to secure more airtime for fistball and the other sports of The World Games 2009. The league published the following article on its website:

On German public television there will be no live coverage of the Tour de France in 2009. This decision of the ARD network was announced on Thursday, 16 October, just a few days after Germany's Stefan Schumacher and Austrias Bernhard Kohl from the Gerolsteiner Cycling Team had tested positive in a drug test. Now the German Fistball League (DFBL) is about to promote the idea to transmit the Kaohsiung Word Games instead of the Tour on ARD and ZDF. The next edition of the Tour de France, still the most popular cycling event in the world, will be held from 4 to 26 July, The World Games will end on the same day in Kaohsiung, TPE. This event begins on 16 July.

The DFBL points out that sport s like aerobic, orienteering and of course fistball do hardly get any coverage on German television so far even though they did not cause any doping trouble as did cycling and other professional sports over the years. The DFBL, a kind of pressure group for German fistballers, claims that the time for a certain change of priorities has come. On Friday they invited both Rainer Brechtken, the President of the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) and the Public Television's representatives to deal with the issue. For some historical reasons the fistball players as well as other sports from The World Games' program belong to the German Gymnastics Federation. For some decades, fistball and other sports have felt unprivileged.
“It would be cool if the TV stations showed some highlights of The World Games instead of the Tour de France. But still I think that we will hardly get as much attention as the Paralympics. In September the games for disabled athletes have been on German television for three or four hours a day”, said German player Marco Lochmahr in an interview with the DFBL Media Service. 20 year-old Lochmahr has been the captain of the National Champion TV Vaihingen/Enz for some time. After winning the Under 18 World Championships in 2006 and the European Under 21 championships in 2006, 2007 and 2008 the setter hopes to make it to Kaohsiung. “Television coverage could help to get sponsors and of course to increase fistball's popularity”, he said. Although Lochmahr still has some interest in cycling events, he supports the public broadcasters' decision. The youngster thinks that now they were at a point where they could not tolerate doping anymore.