Welcome to the decade of handball!
What this decade has in store for the sport and why handball is not only attractive for fans
2022 started with a real highlight for handball fans: the European Men's Handball Championship began in Hungary and Slovakia on 13 January. Among the squads was a promising DHB team in which federal coach Alfred Gislason included both old hands and young, ambitious players alike. The new handball generation for the upcoming decade of handball recently announced by the German Handball Federation (DHB), is excited to see what the future has in store for them and so should you. Among exciting tournaments and an attractive fan group, the coming years have quite a lot in store, for players, fans and brands alike. This article dives deeper into the promising future of handball.
Kristin Podewils
Published on September 27th, 2022
In this Insight:
Germany will be hosting international handball tournaments in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2027
The decade of handball will see several international championships, among others, where the DHB serves as host, welcoming the world of handball to Germany. In addition, there are other key tournaments on the horizon in the years to come. The Junior World Championship will take place in Germany and Greece in June 2023 while the World Men’s Handball Championship will be held in Poland and Sweden at the start of the year. In January 2024, Germany will host the European Men's Handball Championship for the first time – and is aiming to hit a new spectator record by awarding events to major halls in atmospheric strongholds like Dusseldorf, Cologne and Berlin. The hope is for a new world record to be set when 50,000 fans come to the German national handball team’s opening game in Dusseldorf’s Merkur Spiel-Arena. Fortuna Düsseldorf, in the 2. Bundesliga, would normally be playing there.
“I’ve dreamed of playing handball in a football stadium for years. We deliberately opted for major locations in major cities: we wanted the halls to be packed with spectators bringing the enthusiasm we’ve come to know.”
ANDREAS MICHELMANN, DHB PRESIDENT
Excitement of the world championships soon to be upon us
The World Women’s Handball Championship, which Germany will be hosting in collaboration with the Netherlands, will follow in 2025. In 2027, finally, Germany will host the World Men's Handball Championship – exactly 110 years after handball was invented on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz (and, incidentally, the sport was initially for women).
Interest in handball visibly increases
27 Mio.
Handball fans in Germany
730.000
DHB (German Handball association) members
11 Mio.
TV viewers for the 2019 world cup final
Germany is the motherland of handball, and impressive figures show that interest in handball has remained buoyant for almost a century: 27 million German handball fans follow the national teams’ progress with excitement. With almost 730,000 members, 4,200 clubs and 22,000 teams, the DHB is the world’s largest national handball association. Television spectators also display a great deal of interest in handball: 11.9 million ARD viewers crossed their fingers during the gripping 2019 World Championship semi-final against Norway. On average, 8.6 million viewers watched the DHB team’s games in the 2019 World Championship.
And the hype remains...
There’s no end in sight to the handball boom: since 2016, the amount of people interested in the sport in Germany has increased by 2.57 million,while the number of social media followers has increased by 50 percent since 2019, believe it or not.
Friendly, authentic and strong
The charisma of the German national handball team isn’t just down to its recent successes – the men’s World Championship win in 2007 and the European title in 2016. The players in Germany’s national handball team are seen as being friendly, approachable and down-to-earth. Sponsors benefit from this, too, with authentic integration into activations, for example.
As a marketing partner of the German Handball Federation, SPORTFIVE ensures a tailored, holistic brand presence, whether on jerseys, on attention-grabbing boards or floor stickers in halls, with ads, promotional and PR meetings, with VIP tickets or digital activations via social media and media collaborations. There are plenty of opportunities for integration.
Autohero, Europe’s leading online shop for used vehicles and the main sponsor of Hertha BSC in the football Bundesliga, has recognised this huge potential. It has been advertising on the jerseys of DHB men and women since the start of 2022, and will continue to do so for at least the next three years. Autohero hopes to use the charisma of handball and the national teams, in particular, to give itself an even stronger position in the market and add further emotion to the brand.
“We’re stepping into the decade of handball alongside Autohero. With the events over the next few years and our strong fanbase, we’re able to provide an attractive stage that Autohero can make extensive use of.”
MARK SCHOBER, CHAIRMAN OF THE GERMAN HANDBALL FEDERATION
... And the future has even more to bring!
The decade of handball has begun. We can look forward to exciting, jam-packed years of handball where DHB sponsors and partners can celebrate success shoulder to shoulder with the country’s teams. Don’t miss out: be part of Germany’s handball history. Now is the perfect time to get started.
