TruckScout24 EHF FINAL4 reaches new heights

The final weekend of the premier European club competition, the Machineseeker EHF Champions League, was beamed to worldwide by 35 official broadcasters, including EHFTV, thanks to the state-of-the-art production deploying 23 cameras.

The final, between Spain’s Barça and Denmark’s Aalborg Håndbold, attracted 50 per cent market share of television viewers in Denmark and a record audience in Spain. There were also more than one million live viewers in Germany following the matches played during the weekend.

A whopping 4.5TB of additional footage was filmed around the event, to support the creation of EHF Champions League content. A total of eight cameras were active from Thursday to late Sunday filming every action and every detail of the event, including exclusive behind-the-scenes footage showing the passion and emotion of the EHF FINAL4.

Brand-new digital vertical production was introduced to complement extended digital coverage in a bid to exceed the digital reach of the event last season, when 100 million fans engaged with official EHF Champions League channels.

Alongside that, prospective content creators hoping to join the team creating videos for EHF club competitions participated in the Content Creator Days, focusing on content creation around the competition.

The TruckScout24 EHF FINAL4 attracted immense in-person interest too. The ‘cathedral of handball’, Cologne’s LANXESS arena, was sold out each day with 19,750 spectators and 12,000 tickets are already reserved for the 2025 edition.

Fans were keen to acquire one of the more than 5,000 exclusive TruckScout24 EHF FINAL4 merchandise items produced for the event, based around the Dare To Design project which began in January 2024 for both the men’s and women’s EHF FINAL4 events.

The Business Weekend, held alongside the EHF FINAL4, attracted business leaders from around the sports and handball world. At the European Handball Talks, delegates discussed challenges and opportunities presented by the changing landscape of sport, including AI, sponsorship and branding.

Attendees were able to enjoy the exclusive Cologne Handball Night including an exclusive performance by singer Anastacia, who also performed in the opening ceremony before the final.

The weekend also saw the presentation of the finalists and winners of the Dare To Rise Impact Contest, which encouraged start-ups and entrepreneurs to present projects and initiatives to address challenges faced by the handball world.

Photo © Eva Manhart / kolektiff