Add the Hamburg Sea Devils American Football team to the growing list of Handball converts. Below is a short comment from player Teyo Johnson’s blog:

“That Wednesday night after we prepared for our home opener against Cologne, most of the team went to a team handball match. Not knowing what to expect, I think we were all pleasantly surprised to see a pretty cool sport and eleven thousand screaming fans.”

I would guess that Teyo and his teammates were probably expecting the more well known American Handball where a couple of guys slap a ball off a wall with their hands.

If the German Bundesliga wanted an example of how to introduce a new sport in another country they certainly don’t have to look very far. The NFL Europe has evolved considerably from when it was first started in 1991 and is now principally a German league with 5 of the 6 franchises located there. This aggressive marketing program is probably still a net loss for the NFL, but I’m sure they are still optimistic about the potential long term return on investment

Teyo Johnson’s blog: http://www.denverbroncos.com/page.php?id=334&storyID=6725
Hamburg Sea Devils Official Site: http://www.hamburg-seadevils.de/
Wikipedia article on NFL Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nfl_europe