There’s been a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking as to why Chicago was booted unceremoniously in the first round of voting in the race to host the 2016 Olympics. Nearly everyone had predicted and eventual Rio – Chicago showdown, but there were at least a few articles that mentioned that Chicago had to be wary of early round voting. And post mortem, several pundits and IOC members have hinted that Chicago’s demise was due to Asian solidarity to prevent a first round exit for Tokyo. And as told to the Chicago Tribune one of Chicago’s lobbyists hinted that it was specifically Arab support to their Asian colleagues:

“Luciano Barra of Italy, one of the lobbyists working for Chicago, said those who shifted to Tokyo may have included Arab members from countries belonging to the Asian Olympic group who wanted to show regional solidarity.”

Wait a second? You might have thought that the East Asians and the Arab states didn’t get along. Certainly, in Handball that’s true. After all, the Asian Handball Federation, Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad al-Sabah, was the man on the other line talking to Dr Moustafa when it was decided that the Jordanian officials would be a better pair to officiate the infamous Korean-Kuwait Olympic qualification match. And after that there were calls from the Japanese and the Koreans to consider starting a new federation for East Asia. But while the discord continued from the Koreans the Japanese rancor became subdued. And even more startling the Japanese decided that Sheikh Al-Sabah’s role was worthy of an honorary doctorate degree for fair play. All seemingly bizarre, except for the fact that Al-Sabah is also the President of the Olympic Council of Asia and one of the very important 106 IOC delegates.

One can imagine the discussions that took place in the Japanese inner sports management circles. Handball is not a very important sport there and they most definitely wanted the Olympics. If not in 2016, then perhaps in 2020. Handball fair play protestations were pushed to the side in deference to their Olympic bid. And a year later it appears to have paid off with the Sheikh delivering the votes to Tokyo, with the consequence of Chicago being tossed out early.

The fact that Sheikh Al-Sabah can play such an important role in the Olympic movement while nary a word is said of his involvement in the Olympic Qualification scandal speaks volumes about the IOC and the need for an independent anti-corruption agency. If being selected host city means placating likes of Al-Sabah, perhaps Chicago will need to get Northwestern ready to start handing out the honorary doctorates if they want to get selected for 2020.

Chicago Tribune: Chicago 2016 team: Was it misled or did it miscount?: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-08-olympics-chicago-hersh-oct08,0,882158.column
IHF Website: AHF President Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad al-Sabah receives doctorate from Nippon Sports Science University of Tokyo: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=228&idart=1600
THN Commentary: AHF President honored for promoting fair play?: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.633

Chicago’s first round exit in its bid to host the 2016 Olympics was a major blow to USA Team Handball. Gone is the automatic qualification that would have come with the bid as is the millions of dollars in sponsorship funding and other ancillary benefits. But, it is not the end of the line for USA Team Handball. Here is my attempt to find some silver lining in Rio’s selection and Chicago’s defeat.

1) Brazil, as host nation won’t factor into 2016 Olympic qualification for the PANAM region. Brazil has been the Men’s and Women’s PANAM region representative for every Olympiad since 1996. In recent years the number 2 and 3 teams, Argentina and Cuba, have been near peers of Brazil, but clearly if I had to choose one nation to avoid it would be Brazil. (Of course, this may be academic if a new North American Federation is created and given an Olympic berth.)

2) Olympic Channel back on track. The proposed US Olympic Network (USON) was put on hold at the request of the IOC. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.811 With the U.S. now on the outside looking in, don’t be surprised if it is soon pursued with more vigor. After all what’s the IOC going to do now to punish the USOC?

3) Loosening of USOC strings. While the Olympic connection is a financial and marketing boon, it also can be a crutch with strings attached and sometimes unrealistic expectations. The USOC will continue to support USA Team Handball, but their support is likely to be half-hearted. As such, there’s even more incentive to pursue non-Olympic related support from the IHF, HBL, Liga Asobal and others. In the long run if we can convince those entities to fully pursue Handball in the USA we could become like some other USA sports federations, who see the USOC and the Olympics as simply one element of their many pronged activities.

4) No freebie qualification for 2016 means more intense focus on earning a spot. We won’t have to worry about any complacency in terms of National Team preparation. Back in the 1993 time frame I had the distinct impression that USA Team Handball was in a bit of a holding pattern before they got re-energized with a full-fledged program move to Atlanta. Perhaps a year or two of preparation and focus was lost with the realization that there was no way we weren’t participating in the 96 games. That’s not to say that sort of thing was going to happen again, but any kind of holding back is simply a non-starter when qualifying is a matter of “do or die.” And sometimes that predicament is the little extra edge and motivation a team needs to take it to the next level.

5) Not hosting in 2016 means 2020 is now a possibility. I’ve been waiting patiently for a glimpse of USA Team Handball’s long range plans for National Team development. I can speculate as to what those plans are and I’m sure that fielding strong teams for 2016 were and still are a big part of it. But, while seven years may seem like a long time to prepare, it really isn’t if you’re starting a program from nearly scratch. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to think that the U.S. could put together a medal caliber team in 7 years time, but with 11 years to work with even a cynic will admit that it’s at least feasible. Project kids starting out with the sport at ages 13-17; in 2020 those kids will be 24-28 and theoretically in their prime. Now the scenario could be qualify in 2016, have that core group of athletes continue improving for another 4 years, then pull off a medal in 2020 on home soil.

So there’s my attempt at a silver lining and surely it’s a futile one. There’s no denying that I’d much rather be writing about how to capitalize on an American Olympics. But, there’s also no denying reality. It’s time to move on.

There are only so many hours in a day and with a full time job, family commitments and sleep requirements many, many worthy Handball related stories never make it to our website. Still with help from Bogdan and Christer we still manage to publish something newsworthy if not every day, almost every other day. Not bad for a bunch of volunteers who are paid nothing but do take gratification in the opportunity to share their passion for the sport.

Most official Handball websites also do a pretty good job of reporting on the sport. The European Handball, USA, British and Australian sites can be cited as good examples even if I did chastise some of those sites a while back for straying into areas that I don’t think they should cover or under reporting/ignoring negative news concerning their organizations. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.787

Then, there is the International Handball Federation (IHF) which has posted [b]nothing (nada, zippo, zilcho)[/b] on their website www.ihf.info since August 19. Yes, for 42 days straight days and the entire month of September there has been nothing happening in the Handball world worthy of mention. On its face, this is absolutely amazing and a shockingly vivid example of the incredible lack of vision the current IHF leadership has. Sure, there’s a lot more to running a Federation than updating a website, but you just have to wonder where the IHF is spending its money and channeling its resources if it can’t update its website for 42 straight days.

In the 21st century your company/federation website is the most visible and accessible window to the world. It’s your platform to spread your message and develop and broaden your customer base. All businesses now understand that reality and a quick survey indicates that most Federations do as well. Take a quick tour of these other International Federation websites and see for yourself:

Rugby: http://www.irb.com/
Basketball: http://www.fiba.com/
Ice Hockey: http://www.iihf.com/
Volleyball: http://www.fivb.org/

For a sport that bills itself as the worlds 2nd most popular in the world after soccer (inaccurately, in my opinion: http://teamhandball.blogspot.com/2005/07/just-how-popular-is-team-handball.html ), they clearly are behind these other team sports in terms of new media and marketing. I often point out rugby as an example of an example to follow and their website is yet another example of what could be done: Multiple stories, colorful graphics and audio and video content.

So how does this shortcoming get fixed? As I alluded, this problem starts at the top, but surely anyone in the hierarchical chain of the IHF should also take some responsibility. “Hey, I noticed we haven’t updated the website in a (week, 2 weeks, month) maybe we should post an article on ……” But as Christer Ahl rightly pointed out in a commentary this past August https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.812 the underlying problem is much deeper. The organization has no overarching guidance with clear objectives and goals. Here’s hoping that someone the IHF leadership chain recognizes this soon and perhaps an hour is spent at the next IHF council meeting discussing the website and new media options in the context of the IHF mission. Then clear guidance as to what should be done should filter down to the IHF staff.

Even better the IHF could engage a number of independent and official websites that cover handball for their input on what should be done. Working together as an informal team they could probably come up with a whole host of suggestions and possibilities. Just a thought. I’m not holding my breath.

In what I consider to be one of the most short-sighted moves in the history of sports marketing the German Bundesliga and their TV/internet marketer DSF have decided to limit the sale of internet Bundesliga matches to only the German speaking countries of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein. Below is the text of the letter that I sent Sunday night to the HBL (Bundesliga), DSF and the USA Federation:

TO:
HBL: Mr Frank Bohman, Mark Schober
DSF: Mr Sascha Jungbluth
USA Team Handball: Mr Steve Pastorino, Mr Dieter Esch, Mr Ralf Uhding, Mr Steve Krassner

Subject: Internet TV restrictions for German Bundesliga broadcasts

This past Friday night after putting my two young daughters to bed, I opened a beer and sat down in front of my computer eager to see a key Bundesliga matchup between Rhein-Neckar Lowen and Hamburg. Having seen R-NL get trounced by Kiel on DSF www.tv.dsf.de in week 1, I was curious to see how they would bounce back. Instead, I got the following message on my computer monitor:

“Leider ist Ihre Netzwerkadresse (IP) nicht für die Nutzung unseres Angebots freigegeben. Aus lizenzrechtlichen Gründen müssen wir uns auf Zuschauer aus Deutschland, Schweiz, Österreich, Luxemburg und Liechtenstein beschränken.

We are sorry to inform you that your network address (IP) is not allowed to access our streaming content. Due to licensing restrictions, we can only accept viewers from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein.”

While, I welcome the first ever use of the English language on the HBL’s internet platform, I am disappointed and puzzled by the HBL’s decision to deny Handball fans around the world the opportunity to purchase Bundesliga matches for viewing. For the past two years I’ve enjoyed watching matches on my computer through the Sportdigital platform and haven’t been shy about promoting it as the absolutely best Handball product on the internet. I’ve also tried unsuccessfully to get the HBL to market this product, but have been told that the HBL is instead focused on securing traditional broadcast contracts and that they are concerned that actively promoting internet streaming will hamper their ability to sign those contracts. Hence, the German language only website which I can attest as a challenge (“Bestellen” means “order” for example) to this customer as I patiently struggled for 30 minutes trying to figure out how to send the HBL money. But, now with the geoblock in place even this is no longer an option.

At the risk of stating the obvious here are a few points to consider:

1) No handball fan in his right mind prefers internet streaming content on his computer over TV broadcasts. The quality of the picture is a dramatic step down and can’t compete with relaxing on your couch and watching on a larger TV screen. Maybe someday the quality of internet streaming will match TV quality, but that day has not yet arrived. Therefore, the argument that internet streaming will prevent a TV contract doesn’t make sense. In fact, I think that a strong case that the reverse is true in that a decently marketed internet streaming product could eventually result in viewer numbers that could entice TV stations to sign a contract.

2) Highly successful professional sports leagues such as the NBA, Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Football League (NFL) sell internet broadcasts of their matches to non-traditional markets. For instance, it’s possible for a German to pay and watch NFL and NBA matches. If it works for these highly successful leagues to market their product in Germany, one would think it would make sense for the HBL to do same in reverse. It’s also worth noting, that these leagues do have geoblocking blackout restrictions, but that their restrictions are only applied to countries that already have TV contracts. The reverse strategy of the HBL! And even in countries where they do have TV contracts, games are blocked only on case by case basis.

3) The opportunity for niche marketing in emerging markets is being missed. Rather than freezing out markets with geoblocking, why not skillfully cultivate them by offering discounted rates to watch matches over the internet. The vast majority of handball fans in many countries have a very limited knowledge and appreciation of club handball in Europe. Offering matches over the internet could rapidly change that and as the sport grows the HBL would have the benefit of being the early adopter. And I’ve read that the HBL and the U.S. now have a cooperative agreement. In the eyes of this observer a lot of nice words have been exchanged, without anything really tangible being provided. Certainly, offering web streaming to U.S. members at a discount would be something tangible and a clear win-win for both organizations.

I hope you will consider what I’ve suggested as an opportunity to pursue. At the very least I’d like an explanation on the geoblocking situation that I can share with my readers.

Yours sincerely,

John Ryan, Editor
Team Handball News

Previous Team Handball News articles on web streaming:
Oct 2007: Handball on TV in the USA? Yes!: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.392
Oct 2008: EHF Champions League TV Coverage (Great Job, but more Bits Please!): https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.610
Jan 2009: World Championship Handball Web Streaming: Slow, but Steady Progress: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.673

As of this posting, I have not received a response from the HBL or DSF. Steve Pastorino, however, did send a short message indicating that USA Team Handball fully supports any effort to broadcast handball via internet, TV or cable and that they would make their position known to the HBL.

If you’ve ever wondered why this great sport hasn’t successfully expanded from its narrow European market here’s a little more evidence for you.

Update (23 Sep 09): I got a short message from the HBL Bundesliga General Manager, Frank Bohmann in response to my letter. Mr Bohmann emphasized the licensing rights prevented the offering of internet streaming and that the HBL is aggressively working toward TV broadcasts in other markets. While I like the fact that they are working towards TV broadcasts it's still puzzling to me that internet and TV licensing impact each other so strongly. Hopefully, a more satisfactory resolution will be reached in the near future.