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y the Netherlands, the hosts of the 3rd<br />
ECh 1998. This did not come as a surprise,<br />
though. Compared with the first<br />
two tournaments, almost all media and<br />
economic parameters were down. Nonetheless,<br />
the decision to award the tournament<br />
to a country with little handball<br />
tradition was strategically well-founded.<br />
Umbrella organisations such as the EHF are<br />
always keen to develop new markets. In<br />
sporting terms, the Norwegians took their<br />
revenge in Amsterdam for their defeat in<br />
the 1996 final and started their own winning<br />
streak in the EHF EURO.<br />
Two years later, the Ukraine and the<br />
new European Champion Hungary were<br />
the first to break the Scandinavians’ predominance<br />
– this time around, in Romania,<br />
a country with a long-standing handball<br />
track record. In terms of spectator numbers,<br />
Romania marked new records in<br />
2000, including 93,450 tickets sold. The<br />
cumulative TV audience of 156 million<br />
viewers also exceeded by far the records of<br />
the three previous championships.<br />
The Women’s EHF EURO 2002 in Denmark<br />
finally set entirely new standards.<br />
This tournament, too, quickly demonstrated<br />
that increasing the number of entrants<br />
to 16 teams had been the right move. The<br />
entire tournament offered exciting, top<br />
class sport. That the entrants were well<br />
matched was demonstrated by the relatively<br />
poor results of two long-standing<br />
handball nations: Germany in place eleven<br />
and Sweden only in place 15, while Denmark<br />
again scored victory over Norway.<br />
The great popularity of Danish handball<br />
players was reflected in the TV ratings of<br />
the final in Denmark: on 15 December<br />
2002, more than 2.2 million Danes out of<br />
the country’s 5.6 million inhabitants were<br />
watching as the home team beat neighbouring<br />
Norway 25-22 in the bouncy<br />
atmosphere of the Arhus Arena, with<br />
star goalkeeper Karin Mortensen saving<br />
24 goals.<br />
The high levels of technology and staffing<br />
deployed by the Danish TV station<br />
TV2 to produce all (!) of the 48 matches<br />
live was extraordinary and a harbinger of<br />
things to come. The final was broadcast<br />
live to 29 countries. Overall, the ECh was<br />
83
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