Authors: Pierre-yves Janssoone ; Antoine Feuillet ^1,2; Mathieu Jéöl ³; Mickael Terrien ^4,5

• 1 Université de Lille
• 2 Complexité, Innovation, Activités Motrices et Sportives
• 3 Unité de Recherche Pluridisciplinaire Sport, Santé, Société (URePSSS) - ULR 7369 - ULR 4488
• 4 Institut de hautes études en administration publique [UNIL]
• 5 Université de Lausanne = University of Lausanne

The French Handball Federation has put at the heart of its strategic project the will to see its clubs diversify their financial resources and multiply the practice offers (health, leisure...) to remain attractive in a changing sport context. In order to accompany this process, this research focuses on the economic models of handball clubs in order to categorize them and identify development levers. Different statistical methods were applied to achieve this. A principal component analysis and a K-means classification allow us to propose a double taxonomy of the clubs: their economic models and their level of professionalization. These methods were applied to the clubs of the Comité Nord (59 clubs), which were contacted by sending a questionnaire. The reading grid created allows to characterize the current situation of the French handball clubs and to identify different opportunities and threats for each of the identified categories.