Hot on the trails of the traditional summer excitement ("A new league is like a new life," poetised Die Zeit), a new brand of German angst has turned down the feelgood volume ever so slightly. It is the fear that last season's Champions League finalists have rendered the playing field so small that all the millions in the stadiums and at home will find themselves watching a version of table tennis instead: Bayern, Dortmund. Bayern, Dortmund. Dortmund, Bayern. Bayern, Dortmund.

The apprehension is not entirely unfounded. In terms of sporting quality, media attention and financial muscle, the duo seem to be on a different planet. The champions are about to post another record turnover, rumoured to be more than €400m, and so will the Black and Yellows (approximately €250m). Put together, Bayern and Dortmund will have accounted for almost a third of the league's €2bn turnover in 2012-13. Plenty of proud, storied clubs – Hamburg, Stuttgart, Bremen – feel marginalised.

"We can't complain about the Bundesliga not winning anything internationally for a long time and then dislike that there's more coverage for the Champions League finalists," countered the Bundesliga's chief executive, Christian Seifert. "Before that, there were complaints that the league was missing a worldwide glamour appeal."

Seifert cannot say it for political reasons, but the comparative disadvantage of the rest of the league is not a structural problem per se, but one of incompetence and mismanagement. Schalke 04 or Hamburg, for example, only have themselves to blame for making (relatively) little of their resources – there is no intrinsic reason why they should not be at least on Dortmund's level, and by extension, more serious rivals for Bayern. "If we want to keep belonging to one of the top three leagues, if we want to see some of the best players and teams in the world, a turnover of €2bn won't be enough in 2023," Seifert told Die Welt.

The hope is that all this unrealised potential in the league will eventually come to the fore with the help of a new TV deal (on average, €502m will be divided by the 18 top-flights teams each year) and a wave of very good young players. Better international marketing – by the league and the clubs – is also a must. Seifert: "No club, with the exception of FC Bayern in some years, has even remotely done as much as the English or Spanish clubs to become more popular in Asia, the US, or elsewhere."

Another key question is whether the league will be able to grow without upsetting its hardcore supporters. At Bayern, sadly, the answer seems to be no. "If the club are trying to get rid of us, they're on the right track," Wolfgang Martin told Münchner Merkur. Martin is the spokesman of Club Nr. 12, the association of the Reds' most loyal fans. The Club Nr. 12 members are unhappy that electronic gates will restrict the access to the two noisiest blocks in the Südkurve terrace to ticket-holders. Since many of the most committed supporters cannot get tickets for these sections, they used to get "smuggled" in. Bayern initially turned a blind eye. Now, they are pointing at safety concerns but Martin feels that this is just an excuse for the clamp down on the ultras.

After the repeated setting off of flares in away games, the club also cancelled 400 away season tickets in the Champions League and the DFB Cup. Worst of all, from the fans' view, 300 newly available tickets for the Südkurve have not been reserved for the loudest and most committed fans but will be made available in the online shop. There is talk of a singing boycott ahead of the first home game against Borussia Mönchengladbach on Friday night. "A boycott? It's no longer possible to make proper noise anymore anyway," Club Nr. 12 member Stefan Viehauser told Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Südkurve believes that Bayern are happy to follow the lead of Barcelona, who have not had a dedicated block of ultras for years.

Some Premier League fans would probably wish to encounter similar problems. The Südkurven controversy aside, Bundesliga season tickets for those standing still cost only €140 at Bayern (VfL Wolfsburg offer the cheapest season tickets, at €130). And the stadiums will be full, despite every single game from both top leagues being available live on German pay TV for less than €30 per month, and a terrestrial (studio pundit free) highlights show at 6.30pm on Saturdays.

Best of all, any lack of competitiveness at the very top will be offset by a mighty scrap in the Hinterland. Schalke (at Hamburg) and Leverkusen (at home to SC Freiburg) look good enough to get into the top four again but behind them, more than a dozen teams cannot be quite sure if they will be fighting for Europe or against relegation.

The two fallen northern giants, Hamburg and Bremen, will have particularly exciting seasons, even if it is not clear for what particular reason. Curiously, the new HSV sporting director, Oliver Kreuzer, seems to be convinced that the squad's penchant for Italian designer wear was responsible for a demoralising 4-0 defeat by (the Bundesliga 2 team) Dynamo Dresden. "All I see is Gucci here, Gucci there," said the former Bayern defender. "We are travelling by private jet, there's a five-course buffet. We are doing everything to give the team the best conditions. All we're asking is that they give a good account of themselves."

Hamburg's neighbours Werder had an even less auspicious start: they were dumped out of the DFB Cup by the third division side Saarbrücken. Their new coach, Robin Dutt, was forced to order extra training and video sessions that would have been worse than sitting through a sextuple-header of Saw. "It hurt but was necessary," said the striker Nils Petersen ahead of the opener away to Eintracht Braunschweig.

Torsten Lieberknecht's new boys are widely tipped for instant relegation, the services of Ermin Bicakcic notwithstanding. The Bosnian centre-back has been dubbed "Eisen-Ermin" (iron Ermin) by Lieberknecht, "because he can put a dent into railway tracks with his head", as the coach explained. Will the Bundesliga award points for such vandalism, though?

The most negative take on the new season, however, comes courtesy of Frankfurter Rundschau. "Bundesligastart mit viel Müll" (Bundesliga starts with a load of rubbish) was the headline to its preview piece for Mainz 05's opener with Stuttgart on Sunday. A harsh but not entirely unfounded appraisal perhaps, especially if the Swabians' dire showings in the Europa League play-offs against the Bulgarian champions PFC Botev Plovdiv (1-1, 0-0) are taken into account. It turns out, however, that Rundschau was referring to the new beer-serving arrangements in the Coface-Arena, not the expected performances on the pitch.

Due to security concerns, the reusable plastic cups are being replaced by lighter, one-off vessels. In environment-conscious Mainz (the club claim to be climate neutral), this has not gone down well. There is talk of supporters covering the playing field with the new cups in protest – even though they are made from biodegradable starch. What the Stuttgart coach Bruno Labbadia – who in the past complained of managers being the "dustbins of all people" – will make of all this is anyone's guess. You had better tune in to find out.