Handball media meet in Vienna for second roundtable

On the fringes of the EHF Champions League and Men’s EHF EURO 2020 draw, the EHF Media and Communications department organised the second edition of the EHF Media Roundtable.

After the successful first roundtable for print media in May 2018, the EHF has again invited handball media representatives from across Europe to discuss various topics and share information about the future of the EHF events.

The roundtable was divided into two sessions covering an initial introduction from JJ Rowland, EHF Head of Media and Communications, best practice examples and a discussion about media working conditions at the events.

The second part focused on the upcoming Men’s EHF EURO 2020 and 2022. The afternoon session also included a presentation from the International Sports Press Association (AIPS), a session with the EHF President Michel Wiederer and prolongation of the contract between the EHF and AIPS.

Three handball websites, three different stories

Balkan Handball and Handball Planet from Serbia, Swedish site Handbollskanalen and Handball-World.news from Germany were invited to present at the workshop as the best practice examples. All three websites have established themselves as a relevant handball media outlet in their respective regions. They all share the same passion for handball but their background is quite different.

All three agreed that monetisation of content is the biggest problem and depends on the region, as the successful revenue creation model presented by Handbollskanalen may not necessarily work in some other European countries.

Balkan Handball and Handball-World stressed their focus is on social media, particularly Instagram, where they would like to make the most progress. They all have ambitious plans for the future which will further develop their websites and create more revenue.

Revision of event working conditions

As the media landscape is rapidly changing, the EHF opened the floor for a discussion about the future of the working conditions at its events.
Revision of the mixed zone, future of the press conferences and coverage resources were discussed among the participants who shared their opinions.

After hearing all arguments, the EHF will closely work on developing the new guidelines with the AIPS Handball Working Group whose representatives were present at the workshop. The AIPS President Gianni Merlo was accompanied by the chairman of the AIPS Handball Working Group Thorsten vom Wege and Björn Pazen who is also a member of the group.

In addition, the EHF and AIPS prolonged their partnership for an additional three years and will continue to successfully cooperate in order to support the work of handball media.

EHF President shared plans for the future

The last part of the workshop was reserved for a session with the EHF President Michael Wiederer. With the new contract with Infront and DAZN starting in 2020, the EHF will undergo a number of changes. The EHF President Michael Wiederer explained plans for the future, giving the participants a quick overview of the European handball master plan. He shared his hopes that by the 2027 handball rights will be worth a billion Euros which would help in the further development of handball.

The participants also had an opportunity to ask questions which covered various topics from the cooperation between the EHF and IHF, problems in handball and changing the calendar of competitions from winter to summer.

Photo credit: ÖHB/Agentur DIENER/Eva Manhart