Storm: First title was worth gold, especially for hearts of fans

Behind the scenes is a new series of the ehfCL.com presenting the decision-makers in the back-courts and the offices of the EHF Champions League clubs. What is their relationship to handball? How do they work? What are their daily jobs to make the handball world go around in those clubs?

The red phone handset is only a joke for the picture, but the phone is one of the most important things in the daily business of Thorsten Storm. He is in charge for the “Löwen” since 2007. Before, he had not only been handball manager, but also first league handball player on the right wing position for two other teams representing Germany in the VELUX EHF Champions League: THW Kiel and SG Flensburg-Handewitt.

Storm had started his managing career at the side of former THW Kiel manager Uwe Schwenker in 1995. For seven years Storm had been in charge for marketing at the three-time EHF Champions League winners. After this “apprenticeship” he became managing director of SG Flensburg-Handewitt from 2002 to 2007 – and during this era Flensburg became German champions (2004), twice Champions League finalist (2004 and 2007) and three times German Cup winner.

Time to move southwards

“In 2007 the time had come to start something new,” Storm looks back. He had two offers to choose from: HSV Hamburg or Rhein Neckar Löwen.

“I had lived all my life in Northern Germany, so I wanted to move southwards to discover a new region.”

After initial problems in understanding the typical Mannheim dialect, he fitted well in the club quite quick.

After working for two settled clubs his new job was a clear challenge as Rhein Neckar Löwen were formed only five years before from the two clubs Kronau and Östringen and just moved into their new home, the huge SAP Arena.

“To see the SAP Arena and to know the Löwen project were the major reasons for me to go to Mannheim,” Storm says.

His first major tasks as new managing director were to clearly increase the revenues by finding new sponsors and partners and to install a new structure of the club with a board of directors and new associates.

“We increased our revenues quickly by 100 percent including a fully sold-out hospitality area in the SAP Arena and we build-up a larger base of partners, so our next goal was to have a full arena in every match – but this is very difficult having a capacity of 13,000. You can compare it to a football club playing in a 130,000-seats stadium and hoping to have every seat sold for every match,” Storm says.

In his first season as managing director, Rhein Neckar Löwen made it to the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup, but lost against MKB Veszprem – a series of lost finals (especially in German Cup) started. In 2008 Löwen qualified for the VELUX EHF Champions League for the first time – and directly were part of the semi-finals.

Dream of Cologne luring again

The biggest success in the European top flight occured in 2011, when Löwen made it to Cologne, but missed the final of the VELUX EHF FINAL4 after being beaten by FC Barcelona in the semi-final.

“Our players love to be part of the Champions League, so do I, even as I have travelled so much throughout whole Europe in the past years. The flair of the Champions League is still very special, getting to know so many people abroad. And the level of the competition and interest has risen rapidly since the implementation of the VELUX EHF FINAL4 in Cologne. Of course we dream to be part of it again, but you really need luck to be among those four teams, as all 24 teams starting in the Group Phase have the same dream,” is Storm’s opinion.

First struggles, first trophy

But despite all the sportive success the club had to fight financial problems in 2012 – as they split from one of their main investors and associates.

“We cooperated with him for three years, but then things came to an end, and we had to recalculate our budget.” But despite having less money, the season 2012/13 became the most successful in the club's history, winning the first ever title – at the EHF Cup Finals in Nantes.

"This title was worth gold, especially for the hearts of our fans," says Storm: "The first title is always something very, very special, the biggest emotions you can have."

Now Löwen want to build their base on this title, which might help them to find new investors – which is still one main goal of Storm: "For example, football clubs earn the money they need directly from competitions, especially from TV. In handball you need to get your money in different ways: One part are of course the spectators, but to have a stable budget, top handball clubs need external investors, otherwise you cannot pay your players properly."

Efficient tandem

As Rhein Neckar Löwen do not have a designates sports director  all transfer matters are dealt directly by Storm and coach Gudmundur Gudmundsson. "Our coach is highly professional. He knows, what he wants and he knows how much money we can spend. So if he wants to sign a player, we see if it is possible from the finances and then decide – we cooperate in a highly close way."

Storm’s daily business is mostly a matter of finances and marketing, but also of sports. And if one thinks that the budget planning for the current season just had started at the end of the last season at Löwen, he is completely wrong.

"We have been working on the budget plan for the 2014/15 season since the summer, the current season’s budget plan had been fixed much earlier. When I arrived here, we started to work on the next season after one season ended – but we experienced that during the summer break it was really hard to get in touch with sponsors.

"And we had found out quite early that it is not only our job to invest in arms and legs like it is done in other countries, but in the infrastructure of the club."

For the current VELUX EHF Champions League season, the infrastructure is working, and Löwen will have only one match of the Group Phase in their SAP Arena (against Veszprem), for the remaining four matches they moved to the arena in St. Leon Rot.

“Though we have some long-term injury problems like the top players Alexander Petterson, Zarko Sesum and Oliver Roggisch we should manage to reach the Last 16. What comes next, depends if all players are fit and what opponent we will get in the knock-out stage,” Storm concludes – and is back on the phone again.