As we wait for the matches to start today, fans in Denmark are starting to show their support on social media, in the clubs and in fact everywhere. The creativity is great and there will for sure be a huge focus on the Men’s EHF European Championship and also for sure a fantastic spectator crowd in all four arenas as well as within the fan zones in the host cities.
Fans are the extra player on the bench and the Danish have engaged in a public race for ways to show their Hearts for Handball and spectators will for sure put on an immense show to welcome all the participating teams.
Denmark is one of the oldest countries in the world as far as handball-culture is concerned but is still exploring new ways of maintaining and extending the immense interest for the sport from a relatively small population of only 5.5 million inhabitants.
In Denmark handball is the second most popular sport – after football. However, there are more TV spectators for the matches of the handball national teams than for the matches of the football national team. The record was set with 3.150.000 TV-spectators when Danish Radio and TV2 co-broadcasted the Men’s final against France in Malmø, Sweden in January 2011. This record will most probably be beaten at the Men’s EHF European Handball Championships.
Denmark has a tradition for organizing championships supported by the national sport event organization, Sport Event Denmark. Denmark hosted the Women’s European Championship in 2002, co-hosted EURO 2010 Women’s European Championship (with Norway), Women’s U19 European Championships 2013 and European Championships in Beach Handball 2013. In the pipeline there are the Women’s World championships 2015, and the Men’s in 2019 (co- hosted with Germany. Denmark also plans on bidding for the Women’s 2020 together with Norway.
..
The Danish Handball Association is hosting the Men’s EHF Euro 2014 for the European Handball Federation from the 12th to the 26th of Jan. Sport Event Denmark partners the event. The four host cities are Broendby (Copenhagen), Aalborg, Aarhus and Herning.