Apart from being one of the top sides in Europe, Borussia Dortmund are a prosperous business.

Germany's only market-listed club recently revealed its numbers for the 2015/16 fiscal year and, unsurprisingly, announced a new record turnover at €376 million with an after-tax profit of €29.4 million, per ESPN FC's Stephan Uersfeld, up from €276 million and €5.5 million respectively.

Those numbers are fuelled by the massive transfer dealings during that period, with the sales of players such as flop signing Ciro Immobile to Sevilla, Jonas Hofmann to Borussia Monchengladbach in the January transfer window and, more recently, Mats Hummels to Bayern Munich and Ilkay Gundogan to Manchester City amounting to roughly €96 million.

They are still mightily impressive figures, however, seeing as Dortmund only played in Europe's lesser competition, the Europa League, during the year and the record-breaking sale of Henrikh Mkhitaryan for a Transfermarkt-reported €42 million was completed after the June 30 deadline.

"The positive side is that despite [playing in the] Europa League and without the transfers, we've increased our turnover by seven percent," chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke said in a press conference.

And the club will only continue to grow. "There'll be another turnover increase for all Bundesliga clubs because of the new TV deal," Watzke added, alluding to the 85 per cent increase in revenue for the 36 clubs in Germany's top two divisions as part of the TV deal that will start from the 2017/18 season, per Uersfeld.

That's only the domestic rights, with a new international deal yet to be formally announced. Christian Seifert, chief executive of Deutsche Fussball Liga, the Bundesliga's governing body, alluded to a big increase in revenue from the international marketing of the league in a press conference in June.

The Black and Yellows consider themselves a major draw in the negotiations, with Watzke highlighting the importance of Germany's two biggest clubs' ventures on the international markets. There's a big difference in the modus operandi between those teams, Bayern Munich and Dortmund, however.

Whereas the Bavarians have focused their attention on the United States, the Ruhr side have so far concentrated on Asia.

Opening an office in Singapore two years ago, Dortmund have identified the region as a perfect breeding ground to grow their brand. Trips to Japan and Malaysia in 2015 and China this summer have further served that purpose, with the club playing high-profile friendly matches and engaging in a variety of marketing activities, as this video from the club's YouTube channel shows.

Dortmund's unique selling point in all their dealings abroad is authenticity, as director of sales and marketing Carsten Cramer told a group of international journalists in Dortmund earlier in August.

"We have to touch the people in this area of the body," he said, motioning to his heart. "We met with our colleagues from Bayern Munich at the Supercup, and they told us how happy they were they could go straight to the runway at the airport [during their most recent trip to the United States]. When Manchester United arrived in China, they used the V.I.P. gate. We don't want that. We want to take the public entrance and be visible."

He added: "The local security forces didn't like it, but it's normal for our players to sign autographs and pose for pictures."

The Black and Yellows, it seems, want to remain a club of the people even when they're thousands of miles apart from their core fanbase. In that lies a conflict, of course.

Dortmund are deeply rooted in the local working-class society. They are proud to have the largest standing terrace in the world in the famous Sudtribune, better known globally as the Yellow Wall, "where tickets on average cost about €13 per game," as Cramer pointed out.

He further listed prices for concessions—"you may think it's a cliche, but people care about their half-time beer and Bratwurst"—and jerseys, an area where Dortmund rank in the lower third of the Bundesliga, per German sportswriter Patrick Hoffmann, as important indicators.

The message is clear: The club's pursuit of growth will not take place at the expense of their most loyal fans.

Still, though, there's a certain sense of detachment among parts of the local fanbase.

Influential fan Marc Quambusch, speaker for the Kein Zwanni movement that fights for affordable ticket prices in German football, recently called Dortmund a worse version of Bayern in a much-noticed blog entry, arguing the club has oriented itself solely on success in recent times without really having any.

Uersfeld called the Black and Yellows a boringly normal football corporation in a piece for German magazine 11 Freunde, a club searching for its place in the global marketing machine that is modern football.

Those two perspectives sum up a general sentiment among a notable group of vocal fans who take issue with the club's turning into a global brand.

The club acknowledges this conflict between local and international interests, with Watzke referencing the balancing act between Dortmund's Borsigplatz and Shanghai, where the club played Manchester City earlier this summer, in his aforementioned press conference.

The Borsigplatz, of course, is where the Black and Yellows were founded in 1909 and remains central to the club's lore. Whenever Dortmund win trophies, an open-top bus parade leads them around the square, which is located in the northern part of the city.

One could argue that for there to be more parties at the Borsigplatz, acting globally is a necessity. "We will never reach Bayern financially or the big Premier League clubs," Cramer said. "But we can try to close the gap."

The club's expansion seems inevitable, with Watzke saying it's "very likely" Dortmund will again travel to Japan next year before "directing attention to the Northern and Latin American market."

The U.S. market is already cornered by the Premier League, which is only natural considering there's no language barrier. Bayern also have a head start on Dortmund, having opened an office in New York City in 2014.

The Black and Yellows have an ace up their sleeves in Christian Pulisic, however. The 17-year-old is widely considered to be the United States' most promising talent in recent history and could play a similarly important role as Dortmund enter the American market as Shinji Kagawa did during the trips to Asia.

It remains to be seen how the local fanbase will react to the club's adventures across the pond. Friendly games would likely be played during the middle of the night in Germany, for example. This would be a problem for Cramer, too, if he didn't travel with the team.

"When we played United, our English colleagues wanted to talk about business all the time," Cramer said. "We just wanted to watch the match. We are fans of our club."

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Lars Pollmann also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.