Three key factors made the women's entry into Brann an indisputable brand success.
FYI: This text was first published as a letter to the editor in Bergens Tidende, ahead of the Brann women's Champions League matches against Barcelona in spring 2024.
Brann will play the Champions League quarterfinals against Barcelona. It may sound silly when you say it out loud, but it's true. Thanks to the women.
When Brann and Barcelona take to the artificial turf at Åsane Arena, it won't just be the 3,300 people in the stands watching. TV viewers from all over Europe, maybe even the world, will be watching to see if the surprise team from Bergen can stand up to the reigning Champions League champions.
Incorporating Bergen's best women's team into Sportsklubben has not only been a sporting adventure. It has also been a chess move for the Brann brand.
Many brands greatly overplay how much people care about them. People rarely have strong feelings about spreads, hotel chains or detergents. It's different for Sportsklubben: The Brann brand is built on real emotion.
For football teams, the brand is made up of three building blocks: emotions, finances and sporting competence. Sporting performance lies at the heart of this holy trinity. Sporting success cannot be sustained over time without all three building blocks working - and they are interdependent. If any one of them is weakened, the whole is affected and the brand is at risk.
Warm reception from supporters
New business areas are often a challenge for brands. If they're not careful, it can quickly dilute the brand and make it indistinct. The rule of thumb is to ask the question: Is this within the brand's core business and what customers expect us to do? If the answer is yes, it's usually safe.
When Brann considered joining forces with Sandviken's top women's team this time, the answer was simple: Top football belongs in Sportsklubben.
But in football, and especially in Bergen, it's not just success that creates engagement. Adversity, despair and rage are also strong emotions, and the emotional rollercoaster of Brann supporters creates interest, for better or worse. However, this is a line that should not be stretched too far. If Brann hadn't been promoted straight back up in 2014 and 2022, things would look very different at the stadium today.
The Brann supporters have pressed the Brann women to their breasts, but it's not a given that this will happen. This has been demonstrated by another Norwegian club, which I'll do my best not to single out. Around the same time as Brann, they brought their city's best women's team into the club. But while Bataljonen have turned up in large numbers at Stemmemyren, hardly anyone from the other club's hard core goes to women's matches.
Part of the explanation is how the core consumers, i.e. the supporter clubs, have shown different attitudes in the two clubs. Brann's leading supporters went to matches and spoke warmly of the women from the very first moment.
The other club's supporter manager said that they couldn't expect supporters of the men's team to watch the women's team play, because the feelings "have to be real". When statements like that appear in black and white in the newspaper, the signal effect is huge: This is not one club, not one brand.
There's no denying that timing also played a part. When the Sandviken women became Brann, the sports club had a broken back. Not only had the men's team been relegated, they had also shocked the people of Bergen with the nachspiel scandal. The Brann men were neither good role models nor particularly good at football.
And in came Norway's best women's team, a group of like-minded, down-to-earth and largely local players.
The women were to some extent a corrective to the men when they came in, but now the teams are closely linked. They influence each other, they can build each other up and they can tear each other down. A strong brand like Brann can withstand a lot, but not everything.
Financial gain
Emotions weren't the only reason why Sandviken became Brann. It's also about finances for both parties. "Brann has given the women's team access to completely different resources than they had before, both administratively, athletically and financially. Whichever way you look at it, in Bergen it's much more attractive to be associated with Brann than with Sandviken.
The merger has also made it easier for Sportsklubben Brann to get sponsors and partners. The trend is similar throughout European football: Sponsors are demanding gender equality, TV rights for men and women are sold together and interest in women's football is growing. It took eight minutes to sell out the tickets for the Barcelona match at Åsane arena. They could probably have sold out the stadium too, if only the grass was in place.
For many sponsors, it's more attractive to work with Brann when they have both men's and women's teams. Attention and exposure are key factors when determining the value of a sponsorship agreement, and the value naturally increases with two top teams. When the women's team achieves international success and attracts attention in national media, it's a fantastic payoff for both the club and its supporters.
The Sandviken women's entry into Brann has been a resounding success, both for women's football in Bergen and for the Brann brand.
I'm pretty sure that the Sandviken football team would never have made it to any Champions League quarterfinals. And Brann would never have made it if it hadn't been for the Sandviken women.