The municipally subsidised initiatives for the sporting elite range from nurturing the stars of tomorrow to hosting international sports events. Any self-respecting municipal authority has a sports policy. The reason why most of these policies increasingly seem to focus on the sporting elite is that championships of a national or international standard, in addition to promoting the participants, also have a rub-off effect. The spotlight on the medallists also reflects on the national and local sports associations as well as the host city. The most striking example of using sports for municipal marketing can be found in the Municipality of Farum on Zealand.

In Aarhus, both the City Council and the business community seem to be aware of this connection. This is evident from the fact that the business action plan “Growth in Aarhus II” contains a visionary section that refers to making Aarhus the leading city for sport in the country. Anyone who has some knowledge of sporting matters knows that to realise this ambitious objective will take some doing. Not least because if one considers the most popular and most media-intensive sports such as football and handball, the capital of Jutland is hardly at the forefront.

The efforts to change this situation have led to the municipal funding of two organisations that each work on different fronts, but with the sporting elite as the common denominator. Sport Aarhus Events, established as early as the mid-1990s, endeavours to attract major sporting events to the city. If this mission is successful, the city can expect to generate considerable revenue.

Already in 2002, the fieldwork done by Sport Aarhus Events in cooperation with the sports associations has led to Aarhus hosting such events as the women’s handball European Championships, the European Championships in standard dance, as well as the World Cup in dressage and showjumping. Aarhus has also managed to secure attractive events in future – or is very much in the picture within athletics, badminton, table tennis and boxing. A perfect framework Naturally, the interest in hosting European and world championships is not diminished by the prospect of local athletes participating – preferably with a chance of winning medals.

This is the background for a new initiative – Sports Elite Aarhus – which, among other things, aims to establish ideal conditions for the sporting elite within such areas as education, jobs and accommodation. Thus, this elite sporting venture functions in effect as a local office for the sports support organisation Team Danmark, which also co-finances the project. Marketing Aarhus for sports events and developing the sporting elite are long-term projects which will often be subject to considerable uncertainty. However, the city has also taken other measures to create attractive conditions in order to implement an elite concept.

It might also be relevant to emphasise that sport in Aarhus consists of much more than just the athletes that appear on television or those that are mentioned in the newspaper columns. The organisation Sports Associations in Aarhus, numbering 80,000 members, primarily The newly renovated stadium Aarhus Idrætspark, which can seat over 20,000 people, and the recently constructed indoor sports hall Aarhus Arena, with seating for 5,000 spectators, together form an almost perfect environment for future sporting events.

Add to this the National Equestrian Centre Vilhelmsborg and the three marinas which can act as bases for yachting in the Bay of Aarhus, and it would be difficult to claim that the city is not well equipped with up-to-date sports facilities. The few exceptions that could be pointed out only serve to confirm that the above is true. attends to the interests of the non-elite and thus the social aspects of sport. This area does not usually receive the same media attention as the more glorified elite, but that does not make it any less relevant to society. On the contrary, perhaps.

On the local sports scene we also find AGF Professional Football Club and, to some extent, the city’s other main football team, FC Aarhus. Both of these clubs represent commercial aspects, underlined by AGF’s status as a company listed on the Copenhagen stock exchange. This commercial approach, chosen by the clubs themselves, creates an obvious distance between them and the more idealistic sports, although the distinction has become somewhat blurred lately due to the mergers between certain handball clubs which have resulted in the disappearance of traditional club names for smaller clubs such as KFUM and VRI.

Only the future will show whether it is possible, in the long run, to create a sound basis for profitable business in football as well as handball.