About Handballwoche

Handballwoche

Handballwoche (HW) is Germany's leading handball magazine, published weekly on Tuesdays by the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag. First published in 1954, it is one of the oldest continuously published sports magazines in Germany and the journalistic institution of German handball. Each issue covers the Bundesliga and the international game, the lower leagues, youth and amateur handball, with match reports, analyses, interviews and statistics. Its website, handballwoche.de, extends the brand into daily digital handball journalism.

Overview

Handballwoche appears every Tuesday, timed to digest the weekend's handball — above all the matchday of the Handball-Bundesliga, widely regarded as the world's strongest national league — and to look ahead to the coming fixtures. The magazine covers the full pyramid of German handball: the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga with complete reporting, the 3. Liga and the regional leagues, youth and school handball, beach handball and the referees' world, alongside the national teams and international handball — the EHF Champions League, the European Championships and the World Championships.

The magazine's authority rests on completeness and continuity: for seven decades it has documented every season of German handball, and its archives are a unique resource for the sport's history. The tone is that of the specialist press at its best — knowledgeable, close to the sport's protagonists and institutions, and written for readers who know the difference between a Kempa trick and a spin shot.

History

Handballwoche was first published in 1954, in the era when German handball was still played largely as field handball (Feldhandball) in the summer months, with indoor handball growing in the winter. The magazine accompanied the sport's transformation: the triumph of indoor handball, the founding of the Handball-Bundesliga in 1966, the professionalisation of the 1970s and 1980s, and the Bundesliga's rise to the world's leading league.

Through the decades the magazine documented German handball's great moments — the national teams' titles, the European Cup triumphs of the Bundesliga clubs, the THW Kiel era of dominance — and its crises, always with the institutional memory of a publication that had seen it all before. The weekly rhythm, appearing on Tuesdays, became a ritual for the handball community: the weekend's matches analysed, the week's controversies debated, the coming fixtures previewed.

The 1954 founding date places the magazine's birth in handball's field-handball era, when the summer game was played outdoors on the football pitch and indoor handball was the winter alternative. Handballwoche accompanied the sport's decisive transformation: the triumph of the indoor game, the founding of the Handball-Bundesliga in 1966, and the professionalisation that made the Bundesliga the world's strongest league. The Schleswig-Holstein home of its publisher is no accident — the state's clubs, THW Kiel and SG Flensburg-Handewitt, are among world handball's legendary names, and the magazine grew up in the sport's German heartland.

The magazine is published by the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag (sh:z), the Flensburg-based newspaper group — a fitting home, given Schleswig-Holstein's status as the heartland of German handball with its legendary clubs THW Kiel and SG Flensburg-Handewitt. Olaf Bruchmann serves as editor-in-chief; the publishers (Herausgeber) are Werner F. Ebke and Jan Dirk Elstermann, and Jürgen Muhl is managing director.

Content

The Tuesday issue leads with the Bundesliga: complete coverage of the matchday with reports, analyses, the talking points and the tables, plus previews of the coming fixtures and the transfer market. The 2. Bundesliga and the 3. Liga receive systematic coverage unusual in its depth — Handballwoche is one of the few publications that takes the lower professional leagues seriously as journalistic subjects.

International handball is covered through the Champions League, the EHF European League, the national-team competitions and the major tournaments, with German players abroad followed closely. Youth handball — the junior Bundesliga, the youth national teams, the school competitions — gets the attention of a magazine that understands the sport's future is decided in the halls of the youth teams. Interviews with players, coaches, managers and officials are a staple, conducted with the familiarity of journalists who travel the league week after week.

Statistics and service complete the offering: tables, scorers' rankings, fixtures and results across the leagues, plus the magazine's celebrated coverage of the personalities and stories behind the sport — the cult players, the legendary coaches, the club traditions that make handball Germany's great indoor sport.

Youth handball coverage reflects the magazine's understanding that the sport's future is decided in the youth halls: the junior Bundesliga, the youth national teams and the school competitions receive the serious reporting that the daily press cannot provide. For the young player dreaming of the Bundesliga, Handballwoche is both the chronicle of the heroes and the map of the path — the clubs, the academies, the selection systems. Few sports magazines take the youth game so consistently seriously; it is one of the title's distinguishing virtues.

Coverage & Audience

Handballwoche is sold throughout Germany at newsstands and by subscription, appearing weekly on Tuesdays, with a sold circulation reported at 14,000 copies, and handballwoche.de serves daily handball news online. The readership is the handball community itself: players, coaches, referees, officials, volunteers and committed fans — the people who fill the Bundesliga's arenas and the village sports halls alike.

The magazine's influence within that community is disproportionate to its circulation: it is read in every Bundesliga club office, its journalists are the sport's recognised chroniclers, and its reporting sets the agenda for the handball week's debates. For a niche sport's specialist press, Handballwoche demonstrates the enduring power of the weekly print ritual combined with daily digital coverage.

Ownership

Handballwoche is published by the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag, the newspaper group based in Flensburg that publishes the region's daily newspapers and a portfolio of magazines and digital media. The sh:z group is one of northern Germany's leading regional media houses, and its ownership of the handball weekly connects the state's media landscape with its sporting passion.

The magazine operates with its own editorial staff dedicated to handball, led by editor-in-chief Olaf Bruchmann. The publishing leadership — Werner F. Ebke and Jan Dirk Elstermann as publishers, Jürgen Muhl as managing director — oversees the title within the group's magazine division. The ISSN of the print edition is 0947-8949.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, handballwoche.de, is the daily digital home of German handball journalism: news from the Bundesliga and the international game, live tickers, transfer updates, interviews and video content. The site follows the rhythm of the handball week rather than the Tuesday print cycle, serving fans, clubs and journalists with continuous coverage.

The e-paper edition brings the Tuesday magazine to digital readers, and social media channels distribute match content, interview clips and community formats. For the handball community, the combination is ideal: the daily digital pulse of handballwoche.de and the weekly depth of the Tuesday magazine — seven decades after the first issue, still the sport's paper of record.

The Tuesday rhythm structures the handball week: the weekend's matches analysed, the week's controversies debated, the coming fixtures previewed — the ritual the community has kept since 1954. The Handball-Bundesliga is the coverage's centre: the world's strongest league, its clubs, its stars, its title races — reported with the weekly's thoroughness. THW Kiel and SG Flensburg-Handewitt — the Schleswig-Holstein giants, the world handball's legendary names — receive the home-region attention the Flensburg-based magazine naturally provides. The national teams — the World Championships, the European Championships, the Olympic tournaments — are the flagships: the German handball's great moments, documented with the institutional memory of the seven-decade publication. The youth coverage serves the sport's future: the junior leagues, the young talents, the development systems — reported with the seriousness the future deserves. The sh:z publishing home — the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag — gives the weekly the regional-publisher backing in the sport's heartland. In the German sports press, Handballwoche is the institution: the weekly that has accompanied handball from the field-handball era to the professional present, and that remains the community's chronicle, every Tuesday.