Champions League on Eurosport: Growing Popularity

The matches of the EHF Champions League are regularly broadcast on Eurosport, number one sports TV channel of Europe.

Katharina Poggioli, Eurosport’s Senior Manager of Acquisitions, visited the European Handball Federation on Tuesday. She was ready to talk to Eurohandball.com about the partnership between Eurosport and the EHF.

Katharina Poggioli: In the past Eurosport only had one channel. It has been focusing on Olympic competitions, national team events. When Eurosport 2 was launched two years ago, we wanted to position it in a different way. We intended to create a new channel, different from the existing one. Accordingly, Eurosport 2 focuses on cup competitions such as the EHF Champions League and targets primarily young people with its programmes.

Eurohandball.com: How does handball fit in the picture?

Katharina Poggioli: Perfectly. Handball is spectacular, fast game, very popular in Germany, which is a strong market of Eurosport. But it is also important for us to create something together with our partners. In this case, something that is good for the teams, the EHF and also for Eurosport.

Eurohandball.com: What is the experience with handball from the point of view of the audience?

Katharina Poggioli: The audience has been steadily increasing right from the outset. We have experience with other sports as well. It shows that when we start broadcasting a discipline, its popularity grows because of the coverage. We know this is an important factor and this is a value added by Eurosport.

Eurohandball.com: The channel treats handball in a special way…

Katharina Poggioli: Yes. We provide high quality coverage with interviews around the matches. We also prepare a studio for the games, which is not often used by Eurosport. This also shows our commitment to handball.