The Handball Bundesliga (HBL) has reached an agreement with Next Level Sports Entertainment (NLSE) to stream one match a week on the For The Fans (FTF) platform. This match will typically be the English commentary match shown on the subscription service HBL-TV.
Tomorrow’s match features last year’s HBL Champion, Fuchse Berlin hosting record Champion, THW Kiel. Kiel is currently in 3rd place and Berlin is 4th place, having slipped earlier in season with 3 losses following a controversial coaching change, so this is a very important match for both teams. Throw off is at 12 Noon, ET and Paul Bray will be providing the commentary.
How To Watch FTF on TV
For The Fans (FTF) is a Free Ad Support TV (FAST) Channel which is available for viewing on several diffierent apps. Here is a list of the apps and here is a list of the channels. This setup might be a bit different from what your used to, but you may well have watched handball previously with a similar setup, either on beIN Sports Direct for last year’s World Championships or Peacock during the Paris Olympics.
To help clarify what you’ll need to do, keep in mind that “devices”, “apps” and “channels” are all different things.
- Device: The little piece of equipment connected to your TV. Examples include a Roku, Amazon Fire Stick or ONN. Or, in some cases already built into the TV
- App: Just like on a phone this is the software associated with an icon or brand. Examples include the Roku Channel, Distro TV, Xumo and Fanatiz (Important side note: The Roku Channel App can be installed on non-Roku devices like an Amazon Fire Stick)
- Channel: There are hundreds of different channels that are availale on the different Apps. And, for handball watching fans wanting to see the HBL that channel is FTF Sports
I did a little experimenting with my TV which uses a Roku device. I was able to watch FTF on the Roku app (naturally, already installed on a Roku device) and on the Distro TV app (which needed to be installed). Once I was in the app it was then fairly easy to find the FTF Sports channel. I also noticed that since I checked out FTF Sports the apps made the channel easy to find in the “recently viewing section.
One final note: Everybody’s setup is a little different. My experiment might inform you, but you’ll still likely need to do your own setup and troubleshooting.
How to Watch FTF on a Laptop
I experimented with a couple of different options and these are the two links that worked for me:
How to Watch FTF on a Phone or Xbox
I very rarely watch handball on a phone and I suspect that anyone that does… doesn’t need or want any tips on how to do it from me. And, that’s doubly true for anyone with an Xbox.
Soft Launch
NLSE is still working some of the distribution kinks out with the transmission of the HBL stream. Keep that in mind if there are any hiccups with tomorrow’s broadcast.