Background Between 1974 and 1990, the
German Football Association (DFB) organized the German women's football championship 17 times. The last edition of this championship format took place in 1990, featuring 16 teams that had qualified as the best teams from their respective regional associations. Discussions regarding the introduction of a supra-regional league began in the mid-1980s, primarily due to significant performance disparities between the top teams and the rest of the clubs in the highest regional leagues. Cross-association leagues were established in West and North Germany in 1985 and 1986, respectively, while other regional associations maintained leagues at the local level. A nationwide league was proposed to balance the level of competition. At the 1986 DFB congress in
Bremen, delegates voted almost unanimously to prepare for such a league; however, it was not immediately implemented. Following the
national team's victory at the
1989 European Championship hosted in West Germany, the 1989 DFB congress in
Trier officially approved the creation of a two-division Bundesliga for the 1990–91 season. The newly established Bundesliga consisted of a North and a South division, each with ten clubs. In the initial application round, 35 clubs applied for the league. To allocate the 20 available spots, a points system based on recent sporting success was developed, similar to the process used for the introduction of the
men's Bundesliga. Ultimately, the highest-ranked team from each of the 16 DFB member associations at the end of the 1989–90 season qualified automatically. The remaining four spots were determined through a playoff among the second-best teams from the regional associations.
Two-division league (1990–1997) The North division was initially led by
TSV Siegen, which won the first four division titles and three national championships during this period. Conversely, 1. FC Neukölln from Berlin lost all 18 league matches in the inaugural season. In the South division,
FSV Frankfurt and
TuS Niederkirchen were the most successful clubs. TuS Niederkirchen's performance declined after striker
Heidi Mohr transferred to
TuS Ahrbach in 1994. Following German reunification,
USV Jena and FC Wismut Aue from the new states joined the league in 1991. The Bundesliga was temporarily expanded to two groups of 11 teams for one season. USV Jena was relegated at the end of the season, and FC Wismut Aue withdrew its team due to financial constraints. During the early years of the Bundesliga, several pioneer clubs were replaced by newly promoted teams. In 1994, the 1985 champion
KBC Duisburg and the record champion
SSG Bergisch Gladbach were relegated, while clubs such as
FC Rumeln-Kaldenhausen and
Grün-Weiß Brauweiler established themselves in the upper half of the table. In the South division, FSV Frankfurt maintained a leading position, winning all of their matches in 1995 with the exception of one semi-final leg against Rumeln-Kaldenhausen.
Single-division Bundesliga (1997–present) For the 1997–98 season, the Bundesliga was consolidated into a single division of 12 teams to address ongoing performance gaps. The top four teams from both the North and South divisions automatically qualified. The teams finishing fifth through eighth, along with eight teams from the respective second divisions, formed four groups of four. The four group winners also qualified for the single-division Bundesliga. Although
Fortuna Sachsenross Hannover qualified athletically, the club withdrew due to financial reasons, and
Hamburger SV took their place. FSV Frankfurt won the first championship of the single-division Bundesliga, but the club's performance subsequently declined. After dropping to the middle of the table, the entire first-team squad left the club in the summer of 2005. In the following season, the team lost all but one match, often by wide margins, and the club dissolved its women's football department at the end of the 2005–06 season. Former champion TSV Siegen also experienced a decline in performance and eventually withdrew to the
Regionalliga West in 2001. SG Praunheim (later
1. FFC Frankfurt) capitalized on FSV Frankfurt's decline by signing several of their players, including
Birgit Prinz. Between 1999 and 2008, the club won seven championships. Following FSV Frankfurt's relegation, 1. FFC Frankfurt became the only founding member to have never been relegated from the Bundesliga. Since the late 1990s, former East German champion
1. FFC Turbine Potsdam secured a top position in the Bundesliga, winning multiple championships in the 2000s. Based on national and international titles, Potsdam remains the most successful women's football team from the new states. Alongside 1. FFC Frankfurt and 1. FFC Turbine Potsdam, FC Rumeln-Kaldenhausen (later FCR 2001 Duisburg) consistently finished near the top of the table. In the 2000s, these three clubs dominated the top three positions in the league standings.
FFC Heike Rheine secured third place in the 2003–04 season, and
FC Bayern Munich achieved a second-place finish in the 2008–09 season. In more recent years, the league has been dominated by
VfL Wolfsburg and FC Bayern Munich, who have won all league titles since 2013. The 2013–14 season set a league record for attendance, with an average of 1,185 spectators per match. In April 2014, the DFB secured the insurance company
Allianz as a naming sponsor. Consequently, the league was officially named the
Allianz Frauen-Bundesliga for five years, starting from 1 July 2014. The sponsorship agreement provided each club with a fixed sum of €100,000 per season. For the 2019–20 season, the Bundesliga acquired a new naming sponsor, the
Würzburg-based online printing company Flyeralarm, with a contract running until 2023. Starting 1 July 2023,
Google secured the naming rights for their product
Google Pixel until 2027, officially rebranding the league as the
Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga. In June 2024, the German Football Association decided to expand the Frauen-Bundesliga from 12 to 14 teams, starting with the 2025–26 season. ==Competition format==