‘The power of women's sport for social change is not yet foreseeable.’
In the third and final part of our interview special on SPORTFIVE's involvement in women's football, Karsten Bentlage, Senior Vice President Consulting at SPORTFIVE, talks about success stories in the activation of sponsorships and explains what needs to be considered during activation and how he sees the future of women's football in Germany.
In this Insight:
Mr Bentlage, you have been working on brand activation for several years now. Can you categorise the relevance and characteristics of women's football from your perspective?
From my point of view, women's football differs somewhat from men's football in terms of its positioning and value proposition. Of course, this also has an influence on the activation of partnerships between rights holders and advertising brands. In contrast to men's football, in Germany, women's football is currently still not very reach- and rights-driven. There are still many fans who are generally interested in it and the respective fandom for a specific team as well as rivalries with others are comparatively less pronounced. For the conception and realisation of sponsorship campaigns, this offers more opportunities for ‘togetherness’ between different clubs and athletes, and there is definitely more freedom because the boundaries among the different fan groups, some of which have grown historically, do not yet exist.
Nevertheless, the activation of sponsorship rights should be considered all the more from the outset for new partnerships due to the sometimes still manageable reach of rights holders. Ideally with the same budget as the pure rights costs, which seems absolutely realistic for brands given the current comparatively feasible sums for rights. Various realisations have already shown that this is the ideal budget constellation for a large, positive media response to a sponsorship commitment.
Can you give examples of projects that you have helped to design and support as SPORTFIVE?
With pleasure. For example, to link New Balance more with football and pop culture and to show the public that New Balance understands where these two phenomena intersect, we put together a diverse lifestyle-oriented programme of events in Berlin for the female football community in 2023 via our subsidiary agency DRAVT - a joint venture with the Berlin creative agency DOJO. In addition to a women's football tournament including skill challenges for female ‘cool kids’, we were able to significantly increase the appeal of this event through the presence of various influencers, performances by local music talents and renowned international artists. We created the brand's own right by organising a complete football day for them at a highly urban location in the centre of Berlin and inviting creators to ensure sufficient reach. The media buzz was enormous and significantly sharpened the New Balance brand in the target group of women's football fans, as well as boosting sales of New Balance products such as their TEKELA 4 and FURON V7 football boots among women.
The multi-club sponsorship of kununu
A second example is kununu, where we took a completely different approach: The fit between the rapidly changing women's football sector, the equally rapidly changing working environment for women and the kununu claim ‘Let's make work better’ was a given from the outset. In addition, kununu wanted to focus on North Rhine-Westphalia, which is why we brought them together with five rival clubs from this region under the claim ‘Separated in colour, united in mission’ with the aim of giving more visibility to the topics of equal rights and fair conditions in sport and the world of work. In order to achieve greater reach, we designed a DOOH fan journey at the men's teams' matches in Cologne, Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen, among others, to generate attention for the women's teams and the partnership by addressing fans individually. We worked closely with kununu throughout all phases of the project: from the selection of women's football as an advertising platform, the development of the communication strategy and selection of rights holders to the implementation and playout of the content.
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Vorwerk and the DFB women's national team
Last but not least, I would also like to mention Vorwerk, who used their DFB women's sponsorship with our help for a purpose issue to draw attention to the ‘gender care gap’ between men and women. It was important to them not to become too political and not to point the finger. Instead, they wanted to encourage discussion. The naked evidence of the gender care gap figures on the back of the anthem jackets and warm-up shirts did a marvellous job, as the huge media response from kicker to Horizont showed.
I firmly believe that women's football will continue to grow in Germany and will become firmly established as a sponsorship option alongside its male counterpart in the long term. For anyone who jumps on this bandwagon now, it can be a huge opportunity to grow with it.
Karsten Bentlage
We have now talked about many opportunities for and with women's football. Do you see the development as unreservedly positive or do you still see risks?
Although we see women's football predominantly as an opportunity, there is of course still a lot of room for improvement. For example, the last adidas study ‘Breaking Barriers’ showed very clearly that football as a whole is still far from being seen as gender-inclusive by fans and is still a long way from equal pay or an income level in women's football that enables all female players to be professional footballers and train under professional conditions comparable to those of men. In the end, of course, the quality of the sport suffers in particular - more would certainly be possible with better conditions for the players. Women's football also needs to professionalise itself further in terms of product presentation on TV/OTT, rethink some kick-off times and ultimately bring fans to the big stadiums on a permanent basis. Otherwise, its general and commercial success will be finite.
This is exactly what we at SPORTFIVE want to prevent with our partners on the rights holder and brand side. We want to continue working to ensure that more money flows into women's sport in general and women's football in particular, because we are totally convinced of the advertising impact and uniqueness of this sports platform. And I can only say to all those people who might still be complaining about the lack of hard tackling or intensity in women's football: In a comparison of the European Big 5 leagues, women demonstrably train twice as much as men on average. And the latest study by the Technical University of Munich showed that they only need half as long on average to get up again after a foul as male professionals. Anyone who really claims that professional women's football today is too soft or undynamic in comparison has probably not watched a single game in the Bundesliga or in the international tournaments of the German national team in recent years.
How would you assess the future of women's football in Germany?
Although there is still some untapped potential, we are firmly convinced - also with a view to other countries such as the UK or the USA, which are already a few steps ahead of us - that women's football will continue to grow in Germany and become firmly established as a sponsorship option alongside its male counterpart in the long term. This can be a huge opportunity for anyone who jumps on this bandwagon early on to grow with it.
Personally, I don't think we all realise how big its economic potential and potential power for change in German society really is. International examples such as Megan Rapinoe, but also Caitlin Clark or Simone Biles in their respective sports, show us the power that can be unleashed here for all of us, even beyond sport, and how much many fans simply want a more diverse sports landscape with equal treatment for men and women. If we as SPORTFIVE can contribute to this, it makes me personally very happy in addition to the commercial success for us.
Is women's football more open to change than men's football?
I like the idea that women's football might soon be a bit more innovative than men's football in terms of format modifications such as play-offs, but also behind-the-scenes content and cameras or perhaps even investor involvement. Here, the sport simply feels a little less culturally charged and the fans are more open. There is also less dependence on TV/OTT partners and their media money. What I don't see, however, is UEFA and FIFA giving in to demands such as a smaller pitch or shorter playing time, such as in the Kings or Queens League for the Bundesliga or international tournaments. This is simply a different product and the money needed to build such an infrastructure would be much better spent on supporting more female coaches, officials and professional players. That should be the top priority for all of us.
Thank you for the interview!
Click here for part 1 of the big interview with Hendrik Schiphorst about the reasons for SPORTFIVE's involvement in women's football, and here for part 2 with Stefan Heitfeld about the goals and sponsorship examples in women's football.
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