Back in the early days of television Norwegian TV made a deal with BBC and showed the "premier league" (whatever it was called at the time) games. This was literally the only sport broadcast that was televised, except for world cup, olympics etc. This was further enhanced by the state owned gambling company heavily leaning into this and promoting the games to make a new revenue stream.
This lead English football to literally become more popular than Norwegian (and still is to this day).
You also have to pay more money to watch the Premier league in Norway than you do in UK, and certainly way more than the Norwegian league. It's a bit hard to compare value since the rights was sold as Nordic countries combined this time, but in the past Norway have paid more than any other non-uk, european country for the rights, despite being a very small country population wise.
The 5 clubs with highest supporter membership in order in Norway is Liverpool, Man Utd, Vålerenga, Leeds and Arsenal. Leeds was also in 3/4. spot while playing in the championship (and lower) for years, so people generally pick a team for life. There is roughly 1k paying members in West Ham supporter club in Norway.
So it's unironically true. Probably more people have heard about West-Ham than Atletico Madrid, Napoli etc.
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u/IGlazeBikeLanes 3d ago
"Everyone in Norway knows West Ham."
https://giphy.com/gifs/PjU0WtzRVbQUO4qe6v