‘Women's football reaches new and different target groups than men's football’
In part 2 of our big interview special about SPORTFIVE's involvement in women's football, Stefan Heitfeld, Senior Vice President Regional & Team Sales at SPORTFIVE Germany, talks about the reasons why women's football is so interesting for brands, the differences between men's and women's football and how clubs can particularly benefit from their women's teams.
In this Insight:
Mr Heitfeld, in your Sponsorship Sales division, you deal with the marketing of rights for associations and clubs on a daily basis. To what extent are you already working in women's sport?
As Hendrik Schiphorst already mentioned, we already exclusively market 14 women's football teams in Germany - including the women's teams of Bayer Leverkusen, VfB Stuttgart, HSV, Hertha BSC, BVB and Schalke 04. In addition, we also work exclusively with various national associations such as the DFB women's national teams (hospitality) and the DBB and DHB (sponsorship) as well as internationally with the US women's national team, Olympique Lyon, the US NWSL, UEFA, the IHF and several teams in the UK in particular.
This is complemented by our athlete management team, which has already concluded various fantastic sponsorship partnerships with national football players such as Laura Freigang, Giulia Gwinn, Sam Kerr and Megan Rapinoe, as well as with track and field athlete Alica Schmidt and national hockey player Nike Lorenz.
Whereas in the past we used to see brands actually wanting to invest in the men's team of a rights holder and then ‘just went along with it’, today we are seeing more and more specific investments by advertisers explicitly in the women's teams. And we believe this will continue to increase because advertisers can tell different stories to different target groups and families than in men's football.
Whereas in the past we used to see more often that brands actually wanted to invest in the male team of a rights holder and then ‘just went along with’ the respective female team, today we are seeing more and more specific investments by advertisers explicitly in the female teams.
Stefan Heitfeld
How is this development reflected in SPORTFIVE's international sales structures?
Due to these additional marketing opportunities, the individual diversity of the various rights holders and the enormous growth of the market, we are very pleased that we have received a clear commitment from the management to set up our own women's football sales unit in Germany under the leadership of Jessica Stommel. This team will be fully dedicated to this topic and will continuously expand it. It will be supported by our entire sales and activation network in Germany. Of course, we also benefit greatly from the global exchange with the other SPORTFIVE country markets and the global competence centre ‘Women Football’. Our colleagues from the UK, USA and France in particular are already somewhat ahead of us in terms of sales expertise in sponsorship and can still help us a great deal, especially when it comes to developing products and packages with rights holders.
What reasons do you see for the growing interest in women's football among brands?
The main argument we see is that brands can reach some target groups better and more natively with the help of women's sport and women's football in particular, which they perhaps no longer reach to the same extent via men's football. For example, this was one of the driving arguments for Clarins to enter football with the BVB women as a shirt partner, but also for Kellogg's involvement with the DBB women or Wiesenhof with the DFB women. We were all able to get these partnerships off the ground.
In addition, many companies have CSR goals in their strategy that they want to fulfil. There are numerous opportunities for this within women's football, for example with regard to SDG 5 under the sustainability goals (gender equality), which can be implemented more authentically than is probably the case in men's football. It can also be very helpful in the context of employer branding or recruiting and retaining women if you support women's football as an advertiser. And there are some product categories with, for example, women-specific products that can naturally be presented much more credibly on women's sports platforms than on men's platforms. Simply because they are aimed exclusively at the women's target group.
Are there differences when working with professional male or female athletes and brands?
We have actually found that female athletes as brand representatives are often perceived by consumers as more refreshing and approachable than some of their male colleagues. This is also underpinned by the surveys we regularly conduct ourselves to assess the partnerships we broker. When working with women's sports testimonials, it is also often confirmed that they are more open, flexible and individual when it comes to the joint implementation of campaigns or the activation of partnerships, e.g. media days or joint social media content productions. Probably also because most of them simply have hardly any advertising partners. This uncomplicated approach is fun and helps enormously with creative campaigns and authentic storytelling.
What are the advantages of sponsoring women's football?
The ‘first-mover’ or ‘own-your-sports’ aspect still applies in women's football: while various companies from one and the same industry are already represented by several rights holders in many sports, this is only very selectively the case in women's football. Accordingly, an advertiser can still communicate ‘women's football as a whole’ with a larger or multi-club commitment and not just a single club or association. The ‘first mover initiative’ in particular is generally perceived from the outside as very innovative and progressive. Through a single commitment to a rights holder, you can quickly be seen as a promoter of an entire sport. And at a very reasonable price for a sponsorship package compared to men's football, for example.
Mr Schiphorst also mentioned that the perception of women's football differs from that of men's football. Can you go into that again?
Gladly. Our GWI studies and recent surveys by the DFB and UEFA clearly show that women's football generally has a very positive image and is associated with some very contemporary values: Family friendliness, closeness, a safe stadium atmosphere, inclusion, inspiration or diversity. In addition, there is still a somewhat more open attitude towards sponsors in the fan scene - much like in esports and gaming - because they are still often seen as enablers. In the above-mentioned surveys, a kind of ‘reverse effect’ was also observed: it is often appreciated by larger parts of a club's fan base - including from the ultra scene - when the sponsors of the men's teams in particular are also involved in the club's respective women's team. This not only attracts new fans to the club for the advertiser through the women's team. It also often improves the club fans' perception of the existing involvement with the men's team. Ideally, from a marketing perspective, a club should be able to develop different positioning for its first teams in the men's and women's divisions under a common umbrella brand (the club), which can be used to appeal to different target groups, but which reinforce each other synergistically. Arsenal and Olympique Lyon in particular show us how to do this at international level.
Nevertheless, the study data also clearly shows: Women's football interests many people who previously had little or sometimes not so much to do with football in general. For one in three women's football fans, this platform is the (re-)entry product into the world of football, so to speak. This shows that women's football can appeal to some target groups that men's football no longer reaches as much as it perhaps used to. Compared to men's football, the numbers are still much smaller in absolute terms. But we don't see it as a competing product, but as two great, independent advertising platforms that can be combined wonderfully as a sponsor with a rights holder as a ‘bridge’.
Ideally, from a marketing perspective, a club should ensure that its first teams in the men's and women's divisions each develop different positioning under the common club umbrella brand, which can be used to address different target groups, but which reinforce each other.
Stefan Heitfeld
Can you also see from your sales figures that interest in women's football is increasing?
We definitely can. BVB women are the best example of this. Within two years, the sponsorship volume there has more than quadrupled. Of course, these figures are still a long way from the turnover of BVB men, but the growth is still enormous. Especially when you consider that the women were still playing in the Landesliga (5th division) last season. This shows that reach is not the only relevant factor when making a sponsorship decision. Rather, many brands are also concerned with access to content and storytelling. And women's football is a great advertising platform with unique stories. For example, there is only one major derby between BVB and Schalke 04 this season: in women's football, and it will take place for the first time on 27 October at Schalke. We very much hope that we can all watch this match in the Veltins-Arena. There will be plenty of opportunities around this event to talk about exciting content with the clubs' partners and thus take women's football a step further.
approx. 60 %
of women's football fans are female (Source: Two Circles Studie)
1/3
of all women's football fans were not or no longer interested in football before (source GlobalData 2024)
+ 300 %
growth in sponsorship volume at BVB Women within two years
Of the numerous deals you have already mentioned, is there a favourite?
I can't and don't want to name an absolute favourite. Many of our deals were and are simply too different for that. However, one example that particularly sticks in my mind is the ‘partner inside’ case we brokered between Deloitte and the HSV women's football team. As part of this sponsorship partnership, Deloitte's partner logo was deliberately placed on the inside of the women's HSV jersey together with values shared by Deloitte and HSV such as ‘courage’, ‘support’ and ‘diversity’. This hidden advertisement was accompanied by a major social media campaign and was intended to symbolise the largely continuing lack of visibility of female players in competitive sport. Measured against the costs, this was an incredible media success for Deloitte and HSV and brought both partners an enormous amount of media applause. This partnership was even honoured as the absolute best case at the OMR 2024 by Philipp Westermeyer on the biggest possible marketing stage in Germany. A great success and congratulations once again to Deloitte and HSV for this great idea and the sensational activation.
Thank you very much for the interview, Stefan Heitfeld!
Part 3 of the interview with Karsten Bentlage about brand activations in women's football will follow shortly.
Part 1 can be found here.
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