This is part of a series of commentaries that address the future of handball in the U.S. In Part 1, I summarized the U.S. Women’s National Team poor results of the past 4 years. In Part 2, I addressed the need for USA Team Handball leadership to consider proactive steps to broaden the talent pool. This commentary highlights an Out of the Box possibility that just might work.

Introduction: Where’s the Funding Going to Come from?

When I talk to handball old timers (around my age and even older) perhaps the biggest disconnect they have with their experience and the struggles we have today is the lack of funding for our national teams. These old timers travelled the world and made a lot of sacrifices, but they never spent a dime on travel or training. In fact, they often received room, board and a small stipend. Contrast that to today’s environment with teams and athletes using gofundme pages to help defray some of their costs. (This commentary highlights USA Team Handball funding since 1993)

These costs not only impacts these athletes, but it also impacts the size and quality of our talent pool. If athletes have to pay to play… there are going to be fewer athletes to select from. And, without a structured training program for stateside crossover athletes this means relying for the most part on dual citizens and athletes moving to Europe to improve their game.

Given current budget limitations, it would seemingly be impossible to fund a credible training program to broaden the talent pool with crossover athletes. Seemingly, that is. Because I think the stars have aligned for an out of the box solution that could pay for itself.

Alignment 1: Women’s Sports are “Having a Moment”

As a native Iowan I’ve been following the Caitlin Clark phenomenon with a mixture of bemusement, incredulosity and annoyance. The latter is due to being a lifelong Iowa State University fan. Growing up I had two favorite teams: Iowa State and whoever the University of Iowa was playing against. Setting aside fierce in-state rivalries, though, I can’t deny the transformation that has taken place in regards to the newfound interest it has brought to women’s basketball.

This was perhaps most ably demonstrated to me when handball commentator, Chris O’Reilly contacted me to find out if I knew of any way that he could get access to CBS and ESPN to watch the NCAA Basketball Tournament. My response included this point. “ESPN is just for the women’s tournament… OMG, has Caitlin Clark mania reached Europe now?” Indeed, Chris informed me that it had and that she was all over his social media channels. When an Irish handball commentator living in Sweden is taking extra effort to figure out he can watch USA Women’s college basketball… that is the very definition of “Having a Moment.”

More than a Moment?

There’s been a lot of speculation as to whether this is, indeed, but a moment. Simply the impact of one transformational athlete injecting a bit more interest for a short period of time before things go back to normal. The jury is still out on that, but I think it’s definitely more than a moment and it’s more than just women’s basketball.

In particular, women’s professional soccer has been showing real signs of life with the valuation of team franchises seeing exponential growth in terms of valuation. Nebraska women’s volleyball played a match in their football stadium with a world record 92,000 fans. There’s even a pro volleyball league now that judging by this match replay gets decent crowds. Women’s collegiate softball also is drawing more fans.

Now, I don’t think we’re going to ever hit parity with men’s sports in terms of overall interest. But, I do think we’re starting to see real interest that means something. And, this is a sharp contrast to the next to nothing interest women’s sports have received in the past. From my own personal anecdotal experience I’ve certainly even watching women’s sports more even if it is to watch Caitlan Clark get technical fouls for the struggling Indiana Fever. Welcome to the pros, rook!

Alignment 2: The Rise of the Sports Documentary/Reality Show

Sport’s reality shows are also having a moment. Fostered in part by the COVID pandemic, shows like Netflix’s Drive to Survive are finding new fans. Even getting some Americans to actually care about Formula 1. This documentary format has also been adopted for golf (Full Swing) and tennis (Match Point). ESPN even got into the act with a new show callled “Tryouts” on ESPN+. Two episodes even feature the lesser known sports of Ultimate and Curling.

The Handball Reality Show: Retooled for a U.S. Women’s National Team

So, why not team handball? The concept of a handball reality show has been around in different forms for over 20 years. I first saw it proposed in an online forum not long after the NFL reality show, Hard Knocks debuted. Essentially, the basic concept is to follow the ups and downs of the U.S. National Team as it trains to take on the world.

In 2017 there was a serious proposal that was pitched to NBC. The proposed show’s producer even attended the 2017 Men’s World Championship as a guest of the IHF. This proposal would have seen former pros from American football, basketball and other sports learn the game and even travel to Europe for competion. Alas, the show was not selected for production, but the fact that it got that far suggests that the concept has real potential.

Generally left unsaid is that these proposals have been exclusively focused on the men’s team and conceptualized how famous male athletes would excel at handball if given the chance. This is not too surprising. After all, until very recently way more attention across the board has gone to men’s sports. Why would it have been any different for reality sports TV shows?

And, while I could argue there might well be still greater interest in a show focused on finding great athletes for our Men’s National Team it would be a fool’s errand. That’s because we already have a pretty good team. Athletes who already know how to play the game and who are also fairly high up in there terms of raw athletic ability. As we discussed on the USA Handball Talk podcast the current Men’s National Team has athletes one would find on a low NCAA D1 or high D2 Basketball team. We could find better athletes… but, not a whole lot better and it would take them at least two years (if not more) of regular handball training to realistically compete for positions on the national team.

Whereas with our Women’s National Team the raw talent is more similar to an NCAA D3 basketball team The evidence to support this includes an 0-0-12 record since the 2019 PANAM Games and the novelty of a D2 NCAA hoopster (Katie Timmerman) with very little handball experience playing significant minutes at the 2023 North American & Caribbean Championships. Her success suggests that even better athletes would fare well with an organized training program. (Side note: Current #1 GK Sophie Fasold is D1 quality and might well be the best GK in USA history)

Documentary/Reality Show Framework

So what would this would be TV show look like? For discussion purposes, here’s a possible framework for Season 1:

• Athlete identification and recruitment: Introductory episodes could cover what types of athletes they are looking for and how they are recruited
• Athlete tryouts: Structured tryouts would be held and athletes would be evaluated and then selected for further training
• Initial training: Athletes would be taught the basics of handball in a structured setting over several weeks
• Initial competition matches: The athletes could play a match vs current national team athletes and/or European clubs

Follow on seasons would continue to follow the athletes as they integrate with the national team and continue training, potentially in Europe

Multiple Variables to Consider

How the show would actually look would also depend on several variables to include:

• Funding Level: It goes without saying the more funding this would be show has… the more that can be done across the board to pay for facilities, coaching, athlete expenses, travel, etc. In fact, from a selfish handball standpoint that’s the appeal of this concept. This show would pay for a real training program that USA Team Handball can’t afford right now, even at an austere level.
• TV Partner Role: Would the TV partner be content to just document what happens or would they want to control the narrative as much as possible? In standard reality fare, drama is what draws interest and this could be a major distraction. Roles for everyone involved in the effort would need to be defined. And, if we’re really thinking out of the box… there is nothing that would prohibit no partnership whatsoever. Yes, some entity could seek to manufacture a team and develop athletes with no connection to USA Team Handball at all.
• Timing: The Olympics are just four years away. On the one hand, it would seem that we’re already behind the curve in terms of the time it will take great athletes to learn handball. But, on the other hand, great athletes might be reluctant to commit to four years of training. Commitment concerns, however, could be assuaged with a salary and other opportunities.

Two “Moments” and a Big Opportunity

So we essentially have a alignment of two moments and a big opportunity

• People genuinely care more about women’s sports now
• Sports docudramas have garnered unprecedented interest
• The U.S. Women’s national team is currently low performing, but will play in the Olympics just four years from now.

So some smart entity could jump on both the women’s sports bandwagon and the sports documentary bandwagon to help a down trodden team that hasn’t won a game in over four years acheive greatness at the 2028 Olympics. It also doesn’t hurt that we’re talking about a pretty cool, ridiculously under exposed sport…

Yes, the stars have aligned to make this pipe dream, out of the box solution seem more than plausible. Honestly, if a reality show almost made it in 2017, it seems that one one focused on the U.S. Women in 2024 is a no brainer. Just a pitch that has to be made to the right people.

And, there are several candidates for just such a pitch. Entities that have even expressed love for handball before. I may not ever get in an elevator with these different entities to make that pitch, but I’ll be making my case nonetheless in the coming weeks.

In part 1 I addressed the low American participation rate at our National Championships. In part 2, I take a closer look at the eclectic California Eagles roster which won the National Title. It’s time for USA Team Handball to put a stop to this nonsense.

Correlation Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Causation…

When you write a lot of commentaries sometimes you wonder if anybody even reads them. For sure, quite a few people see the social media post, think, “just John Ryan complaining about something again” and swipe until they get to something more entertaining. Yes, in a TLDR world, it’s easy for my commentaries to get skipped.

But, sometimes they do get read and sometimes they can even be a catalyst for change… maybe? After the IHF Super Globe this past fall I wrote a commentary which criticized the composition of the San Francisco CalHeat roster which was composed mostly of athletes that weren’t American and/or didn’t live anywhere near San Francisco.

I’m not sure the exact timeline of events, but not too long afterwards, SF CalHeat and their long time coach, Danilo Rojevic, parted ways. (Keep in mind, SF Cal Heat had won the last 3 national championships.) Rojevic then became the head coach for the California Eagles which are (sort of) based in Southern California, even though, Rojevic, as far as I know still lives in the Bay Area. Probably, not coincidentally, several athletes, many with mercenary like attributes also transferred from SF CalHeat to the California Eagles

And, then as a contrast we have the rosters for SF CalHeat at the recent National Championships. Best I can tell, SF CalHeat’s 1st team roster is mostly composed of Bay Area residing athletes and their 2nd team had more Americans than any other team at nationals.

Maybe some folks at CalHeat took my commentary to heart? Maybe? It could be just a coincidence in timing. It could also very well be that they might have been thinking along the same lines and my commentary just distilled the full extent of the “problem.” Again, it’s all a big maybe.

A Closer Look at the California Eagles Roster

But, just in case my commentary from last November helped people make some decisions here’s another roster breakdown to perhaps again serve as a catalyst for a change in direction.

First a quick note on the methodology (or lack there of) used. The roster information comes from the USA Team Handball Sport 80 National Championship Page and the Results file. I then did Google searches and checked social media websites to assess nationality and place of residency. And, no, I didn’t contact anyone directly with these nosy questions. There could well be some errors as social media data could be old or inaccurate, but I think this summary is accurate enough to get a basic picture of the team’s composition.

Here are a few takeaways:

• The California Eagles had more athletes from the 2023 SF CalHeat Super Globe roster on their team than the SF CalHeat team participating at the National Championships.
• The bulk of the scoring came from athletes that didn’t play for the California Eagles prior to this season,
• Best that I can tell nine of these athletes don’t live in Southern California and four of those nine athletes don’t even live in the U.S.
• Two new additions (Bjorn Christensen Mathiassen and Marcus Rene Næss Soltvedt had just finished their season playing for Bergen in Norway’s top division. Mathiassen, in particular, appears to have played a pretty big role, leading the team with 25 goals, including 12 in the gold medal match
• At first glance, one addition to the roster, former Montpellier Right Back, Maxime Bouschet, looks like an obvious mercenary. But, his LinkedIn profile makes it pretty clear he’s not. He’s living in Southern California and doing post doctoral work at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). That’s pretty cool and this is exactly the type of expat that helps grow the game.

“Powering Up” and the “Need to Make Compromises”

On a recent Red, White and Glue podcast, California Eagles Coach, Danilo Rojevic, reflected on the SF CalHeat Super Globe experience and its roster composition. The addition of athletes who were neither American nor living anywhere near San Francisco was euphemistically referred to as “powering up” and he indicated that it was pretty much necessary to be more competitive at a Super Globe.

And, of course, he’s correct. A North American club consisting of amateurs who live in the same geographic area is almost always going to be a weaker team than one that “powers up.” Case in point, the Mexican Club, Ministros, was the North American & Caribbean representative at the 2022 Super Globe. They went 0-4 with an average Goal Differential of -19 goals. Whereas, CalHeat went 1-3 with an average Goal Differential of -8.25.

But, there’s no requirement to add ringers, jokers, mercenaries or whatever you want to call powering up your roster. Ministros has proven that. They didn’t get the highly coveted win over the Oceania entrant, but I don’t think they made any compromises. The reality is this: There is no NEED to compromise a club roster so that you can win a championship. But, sure a club might WANT to compromise their roster so they can win a championship. Bottom line: need and want are two very different things.

Two Key Points to Reiterate

I guess I should first reiterate two key points that I’ve made previously:

1) Nobody is breaking any rules: I highly doubt that the California Eagles broke any rules. The U.S. rule book has a requirement for athletes to participate in one other sanctioned tournament to qualify for “Elite,” but, since there was another enitity organizing domestic competition this year the championship was actually a Div 1 championship instead of an an Elite championship. And, then there are no residency requirements. Athletes can live anywhere and play for any club. And, “anywhere” literally means anywhere (Europe, Antartica, etc.)

2) Plenty of room for whataboutism: And, the Eagles aren’t the first team to power up. SF Cal Heat has done it before, but apparently has decided to change course. The New York City Team Handball Club has also added players including 2 athletes from Montpellier’s Academy last year. (Kylian Prat receiving the MVP award) NYAC, which is only loosely connected to New York City, has athletes from all over the U.S., so by default they are pretty much a mercenary squad that never even practices.

Multiple Issues of Concern- Let’s Recognize them and Avoid Conflating them

There are several issues related to club rosters in terms to both the nationality and locality of the athletes. And, while the nationality and locality of athletes are somewhat intertwined, we shouldn’t conflate them as all just one big issue. Below is an attempt to first describe the situation we have with club rosters without identifing the concerns we might have with each situation:

• Some clubs have athletes on their rosters who don’t even live in the United States
• Some clubs have athletes on their rosters who live nowhere near the club’s geographic location
• Some clubs have no real geographic location and simply get together for competition
• Many clubs have rosters which are almost exclusively expats

To varying degrees I have concerns with each of these issues. Here are some of those concerns:

• Fairness: To varying degrees adding players skews the competition. Intrinsically I don’t think it’s “fair” for a club relying on local players to compete against clubs that are “powering up” with players from anywhere in the U.S. or even from Europe.
• Arms Race: I guess one could say that all clubs are free to power up. But, this results in an arms race to secure players. Is this where we want clubs to focus their energy?
• Lack of American participation: I think the current structure of adding players to rosters contributes to fewer Americans playing, particularly for clubs seeking to compete for a title. This is because with only a handful of exceptions adding an American means a weaker team Because of this USA Team Handball should consider the addition of citizenship quotas and/or age requirements to incentivize player development.
• Player free agency and it’s detriment to regional growth: With athletes free to play for any club, anywhere they often seek the best deal for themselves. This has resulted in the somewhat strange situation of an athlete choosing to be a mercenary for a better club nowhere near where they live rather than play for the nearby weaker club.

Time for Decision Makers to Review this Situation… and Make Decisions

Depending on where you stand you may or may not be concerned with any or some of these issues. Or, perhaps you might be concerned, but believe that not much could or should be done about it. After all, these sort of roster manipulations have been taking place for quite awhile. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it…

Except I think it is pretty broken. Perhaps like the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling pot we’ve just slowly become adjusted to more and more manipulation to the point where it just seems perfectly normal to fly in pros from Norway or France to play in a U.S. National Championship.

Well, I say it’s time jump out of the boiling pot. It is not normal to fly in pros to win an amateur handball competition. It is silly and it should not be allowed. Full Stop.

Seriously, it just makes a total mockery out of our national championships and our would be club system. It accomplishes nothing and is detrimental to what should be the primary goal for handball in the U.S. Namely, growing the domestic game in the U.S.

At least it all seems pretty damn clear to me… But, then again, I’m just some guy with a website and a bunch of opinions. I don’t make the decisions… I just try to put the information out there for others that are empowerd to make decisions.

Individual clubs can decide to change direction, but doing the right thing will result in a decrease in performance. With a significantly weaker roster the 3 time defending champs, SF CalHeat finished in 4th place at this year’s nationals. Not every club is likely to make similar changes so creating a fair playing field across the board is clearly the purview of the USA Team Handball Board of Directors and it’s administrative staff. Perhaps some board members weren’t aware that several athletes fly in from overseas to play at the U.S. Championships. Or, maybe some were aware, but slowly boiling in the pot. Or, maybe they’ve thought about it and are perfectly Ok with that reality.

Regardless, the board should review that situation and decide if they are OK with it. And, if they aren’t OK… what they are going to do about it. Then, if they are going to take a look at that aspect it would also make sense to look at the other locality and nationality issues. And, whether any tweaks to roster requirements would make sense to help put a bit more of a U.S. stamp on the U.S. National Championships. And, to help grow the game domestically.

At least that’s what I think should happen. Ignorance should be no excuse and very importantly… doing nothing is also a decision. A decision to stick with the status quo.

What will happen, though? Well, a few months ago I would have thought nothing, per usual. But, then again maybe the SF CalHeat change of direction might just spur the USA Team Handball Board of Directors to also make some changes.

(Note: An earlier version of this commentary incorrectly identified the two players that played for NYC last years as professionals. They were actually members of Montpellier’s Academy program.)

The USA Team Handball National Championships took place this past weekend in Spokane, Washington. I didn’t attend, but still have a few thoughts regarding this competition. In part 1, I take a look at the demographics of the participating teams.

Overview

A total of 20 teams participated this past weekend at the U.S. National Handball Championships .There were 6 men’s team in Divsion 1; 9 men’s teams in Division 2 and 5 women’s teams taking part. Thee California Eagles won the Men’s D1 title. The Prairie Selects from Canada won the Men’s D2 title and the NYC Team Handball Club took home the Women’s title. All the results can be accessed here: Link

Methodology

To create a demographics snapshot I reviewed the rosters that were available for viewing online in USA Team Handball’s Sport 80 platform: Link (Note: this link will probably disappear shortly after the tournament is completed).

I then reviewed the names on the rosters, using a mixture of personal knowledge and an “assessment” as to whether the name was likely that of an American citizen. Of course, anyone familiar with what a melting pot the U.S. is, knows that such an assessment is going to have errors. To counteract such errors if a club had 10 “foreign looking” names I figured that at least 2 or 3 of them might be deceptive and factured that into the totals. So, while this data has precise numbers they most certainly aren’t. Still for the purposes of this snapshot look these numbers are probably not too far off.

For the 2024 College National Championships held in April I used an average of 12 athletes/team and feedback from players and coaches as to whether any participating students didn’t have U.S. citizenship. Again, not perfect data, but useful.

Demographics Snapshot

Here’s an overview of the nationality for both the men’s and women’s athletes at this year’s championships:

With two Canadian women’s teams and five Canadian men’s teams participating in Division 2 I also thought it woud be interesting to assess Canadian participation. As suspected, there were likely more Canadians than Americans participating at the U.S. National Championships. This assumes the Canadian teams were mostly Canadians. Not to mention the fact that based on social media posts I think Boston might have had more Canadians than Americans playing for them.

Low American Citizenship Participation

Optically, this data should raise a few eyebrows. The athletes at the U.S. Men’s Handball Championship are only around 20-25% American citizens. The Women’s Championship had only around 5-10%. More Canadians than Americans participating in a U.S. Championship. Really? How can that be?

Well, it’s just the reality of handball in the U.S. And, it’s nothing new. It’s pretty much been this way for the last 20 years or so. I did some similar analysis back in 2019:

• USA Club Programs
  • Part 1: Understanding the USA Club Structure and At-Large Men’s Clubs: Link
  • Part 2: Collegiate Men’s Clubs: Our Most American Competition with Opportunities for Growth: Link
  • Part 3: USA Women At-Large and Collegiate Clubs: Link
  • Part 4: Why there are so Few Clubs and Why the Rosters Mostly Consist of Expats: Link

If one looks back at the 2019 data you’ll find similar percentages for the Championships that year, albeit a bit higher in terms of American participating. As both the data for the 2019 and 2024 championships are snapshots one shouldn’t see either year as definitive. And, for sure, this year is a bit quirky with the Championships again being held in the harder to get to location of Spokane, Washington and another entity (the US Handball Union) organizing most of the tournaments this year.

It would be super interesting to see this data tracked year to year, but anecdotally with some authority I’ll just say that the U.S. Open Club Handball Championships could be pretty much described as an expat handball festival with some Americans sprinkled in for good measure. That’s not necessarily a bad thing… or a good thing. But, that is what it is.

For old timers this reality is somewhat hard to stomach. This is because our national championships in the 80s and 90s were essentially the reverse: Mostly American citizens with some expats sprinkled in for good measure.

At this year’s championships I think only San Francisco CalHeat’s 2nd team and, possibly the Wolves (based out of Denver) had teams where the majority of the athletes were American citizens. If you took all the male U.S. citizens (~40) that particpated and put them all together you could probably form a total of 3 teams. And, I don’t even think we could have fielded a single U.S. women’s team. Further, if one wants to separate out naturalized American citizens and Americans that grew up in other countries the numbers would be even worse.

Low American Participation: Does it Matter? Should anything be done about it?

But, do these low American participation rates actually matter? The answer to that question depends on your perspective. Intrinsically, I think everyone, even expats, would really like to see more Americans playing. That said I’ve seen a number of different reactions to include:

• Action is needed to address the problem: A handful of people would like to see regulations to increase American participation. This could include the elimination of foreign clubs participating and limiting the number of foreign athletes on rosters.
• Simply not a problem: Some people get annoyed with the mere thought of “binning” athletes by their nationality “It’s devisive and it just doesn’t matter… we’re here to play handball and we don’t care where anyone is from.”
• Resignation: The old, “It is what is is” mantra applies here. We may not like it, but there’s not a whole lot that can be done about it. I think most people probably fall into this camp.

My Perspective: Staus Quo on Adult Clubs, All in on Collegiate

A part of me would like to see some regulations and incentives that would incentivize U.S. clubs to increase their American citizenship numbers. A combination of “carrots and sticks” with hopefully more carrots than sticks. Right now there is little to no incentive for a club to make such an effort. Organizing and running a club is hard enough as it is. Convincing American citizens to play and then teaching them to play, all while being competitive is next to mission impossible. Most clubs are not likely to really tackle this challenge unless they get some help or are essentially forced to.

But, while USA Team Handball could implement an incentive strategy I’m not so sure it would work. Carrots to incentivize developing American players would probably be received favorably, but there would certainly be resistance to any sort of roster control. And, I don’t think carrots alone would be sufficient enough to do the trick.

Because of this reality, I’m inclined (or perhaps resigned) to maintaining the status quo. Provide our expat teams and even Canadian clubs the opportunity to compete in a National Championships. Competition is good and who knows maybe some old school, primarily American citizen teams will also start to emerge.

Instead, I think efforts to expand the number American citizens playing handball should simply follow the data. All one has to do is look at the percentage of Americans playing college handball which is near 100%. And, the resources and structures that colleges provide to their club sports. And, the multitude of students all living in the same location looking for a club to join. It is a no-brainer as to where the focus should be if one wants to gets more Americans playing the sport: It should go towards expanding and improving the collegiate game.

So, while the low American participation rate at the U.S. National Championships is a concern I would be hesitant to enact new rules to increase the numbers of Americans playing. In part 2 of this series I will take a closer look at the super clubs that often take home the title.