Things that make you go Hmm?: “Free” registration at an “ehfpayments” url.
<IMPORTANT UPDATE (3 July, 2020)>
The EHF has informed me that the answer to this question is “No. There are no plans whatsoever to change ehfTV to a paid subscription service. The misleading URL is a result of the switch to a new streaming partner which serves other entities that charge a subscription. The URL has been flagged for an update. The EHF, however, noted that handball fans will need to register and login to ehfTV to watch live matches. A small requirement, though, to watch the world’s best handball free.
<Original Article (Posted 2 July, 2020)>
ehfTV: The Best Thing Ever for Handball Fans in Far Flung Countries
Big things are a foot with the European Handball Federation (EHF). A new 10 year contract for TV and Marketing rights is now in full swing. The result: a revamped Champions League format, fresh new web pages and a new look ehfTV.
If you’re reading this article and are any kind of a handball fan you already know what ehfTV is. Why, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me as a fan of the sport here in the U.S. All of the Champions League matches, European Cup matches and even the European Championships available* for free viewing. Free! What a deal.
Are the Days of a Free Ride Coming to an End?
ehfTV is such a good deal that I’ve been wondering for years just how long it would last (Article from 2016). I mean we have to credit the EHF for being so forward thinking with this positive promotion of the sport, but they are a business and “free” generally is not a smart long term business move.
And, indeed in some countries the free ride ended a few years ago. There’s an asterisk on “available” and that’s because some matches are geo-blocked in some countries if the TV rights have been sold. That’s totally understandable. If I was a TV network owner I wouldn’t want the match being shown for free elsewhere. I would want viewers watching my channel.
But, it’s only understandable if the match can actually be seen in the country in question. In the U.S., beIN Sports (the previous rights holder) usually only aired 1 match a week on a delayed basis on Wednesday mornings. But, because they had a TV contract that match and many others were geo-blocked. This was extremely frustrating and forced handball fans like me to use VPN to watch matches on line. VPN is a less than desired workaround, but as a paying beIN Sports subscriber I had no moral qualms with using that alternative.
A New U.S. Network?
With a new 10 year contract kicking in there is now a chance for the EHF Champions League being seen on a new network. There are several possibilities that hopefully are being considered. NBC is a possibility and they’ve already shown the 2019 Men’s and Women’s on the NBC Olympic Channel. Other possibilities include Fox Sports, CBS Sports Network, TNT, 11 Sports or yes, a return to beIN Sports.
My preferred choice, however, is ESPN and specifically a combination of ESPN linear channels and ESPN+. As this earlier commentary highlight ESPN+ practically begs for a dedicated handball sub-channel: Link
Maybe Everybody Pays?
But, there’s another model that might at some point come into play. If you’ve checked out the new ehfTV platform you may have noticed that it invites you to register for free: Link
But… the url is for ehfpayments.streamamg.com. Yup. The “free” registration is at “ehfpayments”. Which is certainly a “Hmm” moment. As in, “Why would you call it that?”
Pure speculation on my part, but I can envision the EHF eventually transitioning ehfTV to a tiered service with some matches still being free, but adding a subscription to watch more matches and additional content.
Assuming such a subscription was reasonably priced this would actually be a good solution. Some matches on regular TV, some matches on free ehfTV and some matches on premium ehfTV. Actually I could get real used to that. HBL, LNH… are you listening?
A Little History: Ambitious Targets that have become Increasingly Difficult to Meet
Since I’ve been following USA Team Handball the goal has always been to qualify for the Olympics. And, then once at the Olympics to medal or to reach the quarterfinals. Up until the 2000 Olympics these goals were perfectly reasonable. Qualification was expected. Indeed the only failure to qualify prior to 2000 was the Men falling short in 1992. Getting a medal was a bit of a stretch, but the 1984 Women’s team came close as a win over West Germany would likely have earned a bronze medal. (The U.S. lost 18-17)
But, since hosting (and automatically qualifying) for the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, neither the U.S. Men or Women have come close to qualifying for the Olympics. There are multiple paths to Olympic qualification, but in practical terms for nations in North and South America it has meant winning the PANAM Games Handball tournament in the year prior to the Olympics. Neither the U.S. Men or Women have made it to the title game since 1995 and the few teams that we’ve made the semifinals it has resulted in a double digit loss. In 2007 and 2015 the U.S. even failed to qualify for the PANAM Games. (Historical PANAM Games Results: Link) Here is a summary of the U.S. performances since Handball started being included at the PANAM Games in 1987.
U.S. National Team Targets for the 2024 Quadrennial
Going forward, USA Team Handball appears to have similar targets. As a review here are the Strategic Plan targets for the National Team
Qualify for the IHF World Championships by 2024
Top 12 Finish at IHF World Championships by 2024
Top 2 finish at 2023 PANAM Games
Qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games
Additionally, there are some top level plans identified as potential ways to support achieving these targets:
Project France, whereby the U.S. National Team would compete as a team in a French league
Identifying up to 200 athletes new to handball and sending them to Europe for additional training. I’ll call this the Great Leap Forward Elite Player Pool Project.
Past Projections
Being the analytical type, I’ve done my best to project U.S. chances for Olympic Qualification for the past two quadrennials (2016 and 2020) and I’ve even already projected out to 2024. Here’s a summary of those assessments and when they were made:
March 2013: Assessment of U.S. Chances for 2016 Olympic Qualification: Link
September 2015: Assessment of U.S. Chances for 2020 and 2024 Olympic Qualification: Link
October 2017: Assessment of U.S. Chances for 2020 Olympic Qualification: Link
November 2017: Assessment of U.S. Chances for 2024 Olympic Qualification: Link
The cliff notes summary is that I’ve been pretty spot on with only a few things surprising me a bit. (i.e. Perhaps, I just might know what I’m talking about.)
Methodology for 2024 Quadrennial Assessments
While, reviewing my assessments, however, I noticed a couple of shortcomings. First, I didn’t fully characterize and define the “What We Have” starting point that USA Team Handball was working with. Perhaps it was obvious to some readers, but I’m not so sure. In particular, I don’t think key decision makers fully comprehended just how low of a starting point USA Team had been working with for years.
The second key shortcoming was the lack of actual targets and benchmarks to shoot for. This has now been rectified with the Strategic Plan. Again, it’s not a perfect document, but it does provide structure in terms of what we want.
Finally, I’m going to try and take a look at what happens to the “Can We Get There” if we change cost, schedule or performance constraints. Of course, we can’t always actually change them (the 2024 Olympics most likely will occur in 2024), but such analysis can provide further insight as to the feasibility and rationale for different projects
First up: A closer review of how feasible it is for the U.S. Men to qualify for the 2024 Olympics and other targets in the 2020-2024 Quadrennial.
Finding the Sweet Spot: High, but Achievable Goals
I spent quite a bit of time and energy reviewing “What We Have” and “What We Want” (Yikes: 17 articles!) But, that tedious process was really, really necessary. Sure, it’s a lot more fun to actually draw up the plans to move this great sport forward. Heck, that’s true with almost any planning process. Enough, already! Paralysis by analysis. Let’s get to work!
Problem is, though, if you don’t do that legwork up front you could well be drawing up plans that given your current situation simply aren’t practical. Or, you might be planning for something that doesn’t actually match your organization’s goals very well. Sometimes big projects will even take on a life of their own so much so that nobody can even remember what the original reason for them was in the first place.
All of those are big reasons why it’s necessary to closely look at “What We Have” and “What We Want” and determine how feasible it is to get from one to the other. Because if it’s not feasible that’s a major problem. And, that major problem can only be fixed in one way: By scaling back “What We Want”. Sure, it would be nice to magically change your “What We Have” starting point, but you can’t change your current reality. It is, what it is.
And, at the other end it can also be tough to lower your expectations. To downscale lofty goals. That’s no fun, either, but often that’s the only thing you can do. Otherwise you’re simply setting yourself up for failure. The fix, however, is not to come up with simple goals that can be easily met. No, the solution is to find the sweet spot of high, but achievable goals. Obtainable goals worthy of special effort that can genuinely move handball forward as a sport in this country.
The Project Management Triangle: Cost, Schedule and Performance
So, how does one determine whether it’s possible to go from “What We Have” to “What We Want”? For “projects” or project like efforts that assessment can be done through a review of the project plan. A “project” is defined as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. In terms of USA Team Handball there have been a number of “endeavors” over the years intended to grow the sport or to produce good national team results. The Boys & Girls Club pushes in Los Angeles (1980s) and Atlanta (1990s and early 2000s) could be classified as projects. The various residency programs implemented over the years were projects typically focused on maximizing national team capabilities for the Olympic Handball Tournaments. Currently, efforts to grow collegiate handball, youth handball, improve near term national team performance and yes, the Big, Hairy, Audacious Project are all projects.
And, like any project they are constrained by cost, schedule and performance. What is often referred to as the Project Management Triangle. A project has an intended performance outcome, but only has so much money to spend and time to work with. And, if you want to alter one element of the triangle it’s a given that you have to change the other parts of the triangle in some respect.
A Test Case for Illustrative Purposes: Growing College Handball to 100 Clubs
Let’s take growing collegiate handball as an example. Let’s say our goal is to have 100 collegiate clubs by the end of the 2020. With currently only 15 Men and 4 Women’s clubs that’s pretty ambitious. Throw in the COVID-19 Pandemic and it seems pretty unlikely that we can meet our targeted performance (100 clubs) in the desired schedule (31 Dec 2020). Keep those constraints and you can only attack the problems with more money. I guess if we had $5M we could provide direct cash payments to 81 colleges to start college handball programs and hire 5 full time staffers to be 100% focused on this effort, but that doesn’t seem very practical.
This logically means scaling back schedule and/or performance. With the pandemic it’s not clear what the 2020-21 season will even look like and that could make starting new clubs pretty challenging. It’s debatable, but a better target end date would likely be May 2022 or May 2023. Further, some more work is probably needed in fleshing out a good target for performance (# of clubs).
Defining Performance: Clearly Defined Deliverables and Targets that can be Tracked and Measured
This leads to another aspect that requires some careful thought and consideration. Namely, a project plan with a schedule and clearly defined deliverables and targets. Simply having broad objective statements like “we want 100 college clubs” leaves way too much open to interpretation. Clear targets like “100 college clubs that contest 15 matches/year” are better along with other deliverables like a college handball start-up kit that will help get to the final project objective.
Competing Goals and Projects
It would be nice if USA Team Handball had just one goal and one project to worry about. Unfortunately, however, that has never been the reality and this has been most visibly displayed over the years by choices that have been made between grassroots development and national team preparation. There has never been enough funding to properly do both (or even just one) and in most cases, the “decision” has been made to focus on national teams. I’ve put “decision” in quotes because many times it’s not been clear as to whether a thorough decision making process to prioritize limited resources was used or whether the decision just happened by default.
I bring this reality up, because sometimes folks think that it doesn’t matter if we as an organization fall short of lofty, audacious goals. That such goals can serve as inspiration and we’re going to strive for our best regardless of whether we fall short… So, what’s the harm? Well… the harm is that there are competing needs and spending resources on an effort that is unlikely to succeed is highly questionable if there are other options with greater chances of success.
Can We Get There?: Determining Feasibility
The next parts of this series will assess the feasibility of a number of different efforts that USA Team Handball has started or plans to start in the near future. In particular, it will review “What We Have” and assess whether can feasibly get to to “What We Want” in terms of cost, schedule and performance.
Spoiler Alert: We are likely to fall short in almost every instance. Please don’t shoot the messenger…
It doesn’t take much imagination to envision a Handball version of this outstanding documentary.
Why, I Won’t Get on “The Last Dance” Bandwagon
No less than three handball podcasts have speculated recently on what should be the handball version of ESPN’s new documentary, “The Last Dance”. I understand that with the pandemic a lot of folks have binged all ten hours of this chronicling of the Michael Jordan led Chicago Bulls of the 1990s. However, despite being a huge basketball fan, I haven’t been one of them. Why? Two reasons:
1) I spent the better part of a decade rooting for them to lose. I can’t bring myself to watch 10 freaking hours celebrating their greatness. Seriously… Gag me.
2) I recently finished watching 20 hours of the best sports documentary I’ve ever seen: Basketball: A Love Story. I didn’t want it to end. The Last Dance would just be a letdown.
Basketball: A Love Story is actually 62 loosely connected mini documentaries covering multiple topics. Some, like a feature on James Naismith were strictly historical. Others like a segment totally devoted to “passing” were more reflective on specific aspects of the game. Some tackled more difficult topics such as the NYU point shaving scandal, the Latrell Sprewell incident and racism at Kentucky University. Others tackled great rivalries like the Celtics-Lakers and classic showdowns like Lebron’s Cavs coming from 3-1 down to beat Golden State. And, there are player profiles including a handball shout out from Dirk Nowitzki reflecting on his handball playing dad telling him that basketball was a game for girls. The mini-documentaries use a combination of interviews and archival footage to tell the story. And, pretty much everybody who is somebody is interviewed except Michael Jordan and Bobby Knight.
What appealed to me was the wide variety of topics and storytelling. A straight historical documentary covering everything would have been too dry and boring after a while. But, as it mixed history, social commentary and, at times, the whimsical I was always entertained. And, because they were mini-documentaries they only took the time needed to tell the story so they varied in length from 5 to 30 minutes.
Some stories were a trip down memory lane, reminding me of great games I had seen in the 80s and 90s along with interviews to provide little tidbits that I wasn’t aware of. Other stories were before my time, and that I only kind of/sort of new about such as the stories about the old ABA. One particular favorite was the bizarre story of the deal the owners of the Spirits of St Louis basketball club cut with the NBA when the two leagues merged. A deal that has netted the owners of that defunct club hundreds of millions of dollars for doing essentially nothing.
Handball: A Love Story
As I watched all 20 hours of this documentary I couldn’t help, but wonder about all the handball history and stories that I know absolutely nothing about. And, how, as far as I know, there is next to nothing available in written or video form that could educate me and others interested in learning about the heritage of the game. At least not in English. Case in point: Last year someone wrote an article about Holger Nielsen, arguably the modern day inventor of handball and it was the first account I had ever read about him. That’s kind of crazy when you think about it.
And, surely my lack of knowledge doesn’t stop there. There are surely dozens of mini documentaries that could be made about handball history, personalities and epic battles that took place over the years. Here’s a first cut of the stories I’d like to see in Handball: A Love Story.
History Focused
Origins: A story about handball’s beginnings
Field Handball
Bernhard Kempa and the Kempa play
1972 USA Olympic Team: Make the team… or head to Vietnam
Nation Profiles
Greenland Handball: The one nation where handball is #1
Iceland Handball: Pound for Pound: the top performing nation
French Handball: The dynasty of the 2000s
Sweden Handball: Benga’s Boys of the 90s
South Korean Women’s program
Club Profiles
Flensburg – Kiel: Handball’s top derby
Montpellier: The art of the two game aggregate comeback
Barcelona
Celje: Cradle of handball player development
Individual Profiles
Magnus Wislander
Erhard “Sepp” Wunderlich
Ivano Balic
Nikola Karabatic
Lars Christiansen
Hassan Moustafa
Claude Onesta
Aspects of the Game
Defense with perhaps a profile of Didier Dinart
Wings: Patience on the corners
Centerback Maestros
Controversies
2007 Olympic Qualification Kuwait – South Korea
Whimsical
The Sri Lankan National Team that disappeared
I realize I’m just scratching the surface… If you have some suggestions for topics and stories that should be considered please let me know on social media or via email at john.ryan@teamhandballnews.com
Bini Mustafa, the President of the New York City Team Handball Club has been taking advantage of the COVID-19 lock down to interview several handball personalities both in the U.S. and internationally. I was honored to be one of the personalities he chose to interview and it was great to have someone else ask the questions for a change. He through me a couple of curve balls so, in my opinion, it’s a pretty interesting interview.
Here’s a timeline of some of the highlights of our conversation
05:15 My handball origination story
11:30 Playing at the 1993 World Championships
13:50 Bini asks me, “Someone with a resume like yours, a background like yours… Why, are you not involved with the business of USA Team Handball?”
21:50 Bini asks me, “In your opinion, from the practical and tangible aspect of it, what will be considered truly a successful outcome for this new leadership?”
26:15 A discussion on the latest Pro League concept
32:10 Indoor soccer and why that might be the model for a pro handball league
35:10 How USA Team Handball might coordinate with a pro league
36:40 A discussion regarding handball on TV in the U.S.
40:50 The best thing that’s happened to me all year…
42:20 The financial arrangements for handball on TV in the U.S.
44:30 The problems with 3rd party agencies being responsible for selling TV rights in the U.S.
46:50 Why cornhole is on TV and handball isn’t
48:45 Why handball is headed to a better TV network (fingers crossed)
49:45 The reality handball show concept
52:55 Bini asks me, “If you had $10M to invest in handball how and where would you invest it first?”
56:50 The great advice USOPC Executive, Rick Adams, gave USA Team Handball at the 2012 Strategic Planning Session in Utah
59:15 Bini asks me, “Who’s your all time favorite U.S. Club?”
1:02:40 Bini asks me, “Who’s your all time favorite U.S. born player?”
My apologies for forgetting your name, Richard Jacobs!
1:06:50 Bini asks me, “Who is my favorite expat player in the U.S.?
1:08:50 Discussion on U.S. Nationals still taking place this year
1:11:40 Bini asks me, “Who I think is the best player in the world, currently?”
1:13:25 Bini asks me, “If you were to change one rule in handball what would it be?”
1:16:40 Discussion on adding a 13M line for two point goals
And, my interview is just 1 of 10 recently posted. It’s a diverse group that includes Carlos Prieto, Sayed Shalaby, Danilo Rojevic, Ljubomir Vranjes, Vladimir Bicvic, Julio Sainz, Mark Ortega, Gil Pires, Vid Kavticnik, Kim Ekdahl Du Rietz and Laszlo Nagy. That should keep you busy!
Yes, that’s the actual title that was given to this mysterious plan. The full details have not been revealed, but the outline of what is hoped to be accomplished is, indeed, truly, big, hairy and audacious.
Parts 1-4, covered USA Team Handball’s Strategic Plan which was developed and approved by the Board of Directors. Part 5 identifies what’s known about CEO Barry Siff’s audacious plans for handball in the U.S.
USA Team Handball CEO, Barry Siff, has been on the job now for 13 months and to many, myself included (to some extent), has been a breath of fresh air. Enthusiastic, energetic with a positive, “can do” attitude. Those are attributes that folks can get behind.
However, positivity, can only take an organization so far. You’ve got to have solid plans moving forward. And, while a strategic plan was awaiting the new CEO, he came into the job with some plans of his own. To date, not much has been revealed in terms of details, but over the past year some bits and pieces have trickled out.
The Big, Hairy, Audacious Project (Bits and Pieces)
Here’s a compilation of interview quotes and articles that contain the basic elements of the “Big, Hairy, Audacious Project.” And, yes, that’s the actual title that was given to this effort.
Board of Director Meeting Minutes (26 Apr 19): Link
“Sarah Gascon: Is there a plan to recruit athletes leading to a residency program in the future? Barry Siff: current model is athletes living and training and competing in Europe but didn’t rule out a residency program in the USA. SG: A development plan for USA athletes in needed. BD: The IHF wants a USA Handball Academy in the future, there is current interest in France about a residency program for NT – women in 2020 and men possibly in 2021. Regional geographies are envisioned to feed athletes to Europe and to have pipeline extend to regionally targeted high schools related to a vertical pipeline. BS: Opening the eyes of top athletes is one path and exposure of the sport through multiple levels will grow the sport.”
(32:45) “I’m not even getting into talent transfer. I’m not even getting into going after water polo players and basketball players, but those communications are already happening. I have already met with the Women’s Water Polo team. I’ve talked to the USA Water Polo directors. There are ways to grow the sport quickly. To get athletes in.”
(43:00) In response to a question regarding the starting of a new residency program. “I don’t know. I doubt it. … Probably, not in the cards.” Follow on question: Then how we are going to develop national team caliber players? “That’s what we’re going to do. I don’t know if it’s a residency program. I don’t know if it’s a series of training camps. I don’t know if it’s going out and recruiting people and giving them two months of training in the United States and then sending over a 100 of them to Europe. I will tell you that’s something I’ve been talking about for two years in my prep for this job is maybe a program where we somehow develop people to a base level and then send them over to Europe and get them onto clubs.”
(29:05) “We’re going to be in Paris… My goal. I think our organization goal… The U.S. with our athletes’ talent; with the number of athletes we have and the support that we are getting from the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International Handball Federation there is no reason our women and men won’t be represented in Paris.”
(31:00) “To develop a pro league we need 12 to 16 teams, so we need a couple hundred players. That’s the plan. We have a strategic plan to get those few hundred players. Get them trained up. Get those football players; those basketball, water polo players and youngsters college players playing right now…”
(31:57) “and our intention is to get 100 collegiate clubs by the end of 2020 for sure”
(34:45) “The concept that I had in 2016 was to have a kind of Netflix, 30 for 30, whatever it is documentary building the next great America sport. What we were going to do was track going out and having tryouts in New York, in LA, San Francisco and Chicago. Having tryouts; bringing these athletes…”
KWMR Radio “Off-Center Sports” Show (21 Sep 2019): (audio no longer available)
(22:15) “And, then ultimately the goal in 3 years is to have a professional league here in the United States. And, we’re working on that today.”
(47:10) “Then ultimately, like I mentioned, we’ve got to plan to develop a professional league, but at the same time. I think it’s going to be easy, and I really do mean this. I think it’s going to be easy to get a league, in concept, together. We just got to have a couple hundred high level players here in the U.S. And, that’s what Staffan Olsson’s major objective is as a High Performance Director is to figure out how we can develop a couple hundred great players, here in the United States to play professionally on television, on social media, on OTT networks, etc.”
(57:00) “Staffan and I are talking about doing tryouts for our national team. Open tryouts. This will be both a marketing campaign, a media campaign, but also finding our amazing athletes out there and probably doing it, in I’m going to guess, probably southern California and New York. I don’t know when. Maybe it’s 3 months. Maybe it’s 6 months. But, find those diamonds in the rough who are amazing athletes. Who we might be able to fine tune and give them the proper training, techniques, etc. And, who knows they could be the next Olympian.”
(6:10) “The title of our project was USA Team Handball: Big, Hairy, Audacious Project”
(39:15) “I know we’re going to have over 100 colleges, collegiate clubs. Playing, I think by the end of 2020; certainly in early 2021″
(39:23) “I guarantee we’re going to have 10s of thousands of youth playing handball in the next couple of years. We already do, we don’t know about it.”
Sport Business Journal Article: Verizon Steps into Rings, Sponsors Team Handball by Terry Lefton (20 Jan 2020): Link
Article passage: “With few people playing team handball in the U.S., Siff knows the sports must be nurtured at all levels, from grassroots — where he says there is a growing club scene in major U.S. cities — to the formation of an American professional team handball league, a project now under R&D at IOA Sports in Orlando, where former Major Indoor Soccer League executive Paul Garofolo says it reminds him of his early days with that startup. While the new league is yet nameless, and has no completed logos, he expects to be pitching prospective owners before the year is out. Garofolo says it will require a minimum of 10 franchises to launch for a league that would begin play in 2023 with each franchise costing $3 million to $5 million to launch.
Likely prospects? “NBA or NHL owners in one-tenant arena situations,” Garofolo said. “Some of the big European sports brands like Barca or Paris Saint-Germain also have their own team handball teams.”
“When we do our tryouts later this year I think we’re going to shock some people in the type of athletes that we’re going bring onto handball and onto our team.”
“I know this is sacrilegious and I’m insulting a lot of people, but I don’t think it takes these 2, 3, 4, 5 years of learning all the nuances and techniques, etc…”
“I don’t think long term that well… I’m only going to be here through Paris, you know. This is like my last stint of full time stuff. And, you know, we got to get to Paris. Long term, we’ve got to be really competitive in L.A., but, my personal goal is to have a team or two in Paris for sure. And, the way to do that is through getting some of these athletes that we’re talking about. These high, high caliber athletes starting to play right now.”
The Big, Hairy, Audacious Project (Rough Outline)
So taking all of these quotes into account it’s possible to form a rough outline of this plan. Here it is in a nutshell:
Find 100-200 athletes from other sports
Mode of finding: Tryouts, communication with other sport NGBs.
Targeted sports: commonly mentioned are water polo, basketball and football
Ages: Not clear, but most likely post college
Train athletes to a “base level” in the U.S. for a period of time
What is “base level?”: Not defined, but presumably to a level at which a European based club will not have to teach basic fundamentals
Time required for stateside training?: Not clear, but 2 months has been mentioned
How trained?: Not clear, but it’s hard not to see athletes being trained in a residency program type framework. It could be called an “Academy”, but in function it would be similar to what has been done with residency programs, just for a shorter period of time. (Perhaps similar to this concept: Link)
Send athletes to European based clubs for further development
Level of club?: Not defined, but presumably clubs that train professionally on a daily basis (2nd teams for top clubs would be a likely target)
Time athletes would stay in Europe?: Not defined, but a 2023-24 USA pro season suggests 2-3 years
Start a USA based Pro League in 2023
# of clubs: 10 to 16
Athletes: Presumably, the athletes would be primarily Americans that had trained overseas; Also, it’s not explicitly stated, but it is probably just a Men’s Pro League
Franchise startup cost: $2M to $5M
Potential support envisioned from top European clubs; presumably “sister” franchises
Top Level Thoughts
This plan is not a strategic plan, but rather an action plan very focused on developing high level athletes for our national teams and a pro league. And, in a very short, ambitious time frame: A pro league in 2023 and 2024 Olympic Qualification.
It’s hard in some instances to sort out what parts of this concept applies to both the Men’s and Women’s programs and what parts are separate.
There is some discussion in regards to growing the college game, even with the ambitious target of 100 clubs in 2020, but for the most part collegiate club development is an afterthought for this concept. For sure, there are currently a very limited number of college athletes with the potential to quickly transition to top European clubs.
There was a brief mention in one interview of 10’s of thousands of youth playing handball in the next couple of years, but again this plan does not align very well with grass roots development. Obviously, however, if there is a pro league started youth development is very likely to follow.
If this plan is implemented successfully it would be a marketing bonanza that will surely get the word out big time. Even more so, if the original reality show were to be done in parallel.
Is it Possible?
A pro league populated with a couple hundred born and raised Americans playing handball at a high level. A couple hundred pro handball athletes battling for 16 coveted American National Team roster spots. Just like a European handball nation! As America’s self described #1 handball fan how could I, or any other handball fan in this country, not “want” that. It would be as if I had died and gone to heaven.
But, is it possible? Well, in theory, just about anything is possible… Given enough time and money. Is it probable? I’ve got my doubts. It would seem at a quick glance that it is just too much of a great leap forward from “what we have” today. And, that we have neither the necessary resources nor the time for this plan to have even a remote chance of success.
But, I don’t do quick glances. Even, if seems like it’s overkill, we need to follow the process. I’ve spent a lot of time mapping out “What We Have” and “What We Want”. It’s time to figure out if we can actually get there.
Marketing Handball in the U.S.: A Long Standing and Vexing Challenge
Virtually every newcomer to team handball in the U.S. has the same reaction, “This sport is awesome! How did I not even know this sport exists?” And, often the next conclusion is, “Wow. Whoever is responsible or behind this sport must be horrible marketers.” After all, what else could possibly explain why you’ve never heard or seen it before?
An understandable, if simplistic response, but if one does a little investigation it becomes clear that there are some underlying issues that make marketing handball in the U.S. is challenging. I first captured some of those issues in a series of commentaries I wrote to explain why the U.S. wasn’t at the 2012 Olympics. The marketing sections are below:
Part 5: A lack of awareness and marketing: One in a million? The 312 real fans of Team Handball in the U.S.: Link Part 6: A lack of awareness and marketing: The Catch 22 TV paradox: Link Part 7: A lack of awareness and marketing: The historic lack of European support: Link Part 8: A lack of awareness and marketing: Europe sees the light, but can’t quite figure out how to properly invade the U.S. market: Link
While much of what I wrote 8 years ago still rings true there have been some positive developments:
Handball has been on TV more often. EHF Champions League matches have been on beIN Sports since 2013. The IHF World Championships have also been aired regularly, first with beIN Sports and then with the NBC Olympic Channel starting in 2019.
Social media has become more prevalent and has become another way to promote the sport.
Most importantly, the IHF and EHF have seen the light and are starting to more aggressively pursue development of the U.S. market.
USA Team Handball Strategic Plan Marketing Goals
The USA Team Handball Strategic Plan identifies marketing as one of its major goals. Here are the documented goals, objectives and targets related to marketing.
For the most part, I’ve got no problems with the identified objectives. They are all things that need to be done in terms of marketing. Objective C, with it’s Salesforce specific solution is perhaps the exception.
To varying degrees USA Team Handball also appears to be addressing most of these objectives. The organization’s first full time Communications Manager, Melissa Zhang has done a great job with the website, cleaning up athlete profiles and with regular stories on current and former athletes. And, USA Team Handball is also now more active on its social media channels and rarely misses an opportunity to engage with anyone or any outlet discussing or discovering handball.
In terms of targets the 2020 Facebook goal hasn’t been met, but arguably as Facebook has turned into the domain of old timers it’s of less importance than youth focused Instagram and TikTok. I’ve no idea whether the web hits target has been met, but one would suspect that more frequent posting has resulted in greater web traffic.
Feeding the Fan Base vs Expanding the Fan Base
While running a handball website for 14 years I’ve come to grips with a marketing dichotomy which can best be described as “feeding the fan base” vs “expanding the fan base”. I’ll say with some authority that the handball fan base in the U.S. is very, very small. Depending on how generous one wants to be in terms of definition it’s somewhere between 300 and 2,000 people. And, that’s including non U.S. citizens. As someone who’s really passionate about handball and has a website devoted to the sport I’ll just say that reality is downright depressing sometimes.
Does the resigned saying, “It is, what it is” apply? Or, is that self defeatism? Can effective steps be taken to methodically expand that fan base? Perhaps, but I would suggest that it’s very difficult to organically grow a fan base for a narrowly defined topic like team handball. To essentially create new fans of the sport via well written articles and social media engagement. For sure, such efforts are greatly appreciated, but unfortunately only by the “already converted.” Don’t get me wrong: Feeding the fan base is important… just arguably of less importance when your base is so small.
Expanding the Base Hinges Almost Entirely On More and Better TV Exposure
So what can be done to really expand the base? Answer: Regular TV broadcasts of matches and, critically important, on networks with the greatest reach into American homes. I know this sounds, “old school”, but, it’s still the reality. Anecdotally, the percentage of Americans that have first discovered the sport via TV is off the charts. And, I suspect a structured survey would simply confirm that suspicion. Analytically, Google trend data directly correlates to TV broadcasts and I can assure you that internal website metrics do as well.
It’s really simple: Nothing reaches more Americans than TV and nothing reaches more young Americans than the social media engagement that directly or indirectly stems from the video content that major TV outlets can post online to their millions of followers.
I’ve said it a thousand times. If handball were to be broadcast on a regular basis on network like ESPN, virtually every statement discussing handball’s progress in the U.S. would from that point on start with these words:
“Well, after handball started being shown on ESPN…”
Pick how you want to finish the sentence. Here are some possibilities:
Collegiate handball really took off with an expansion to several hundred clubs
Youth programs expanded in several cities feeding the collegiate programs
USA Team Handball had year on year membership growth of xx%; Along with accompanying increases in website visits and social media engagement
Merchandise sales of professional handball clubs in Europe gradually increased as more Americans became fans of the game
The quality of stateside play improved dramatically
The level of stateside talent making our national teams starting improving
One Marketing Objective Above All Others
The point of this discussion is to emphasize that one marketing objective: getting handball on TV more often trumps all others… because it’s a true force multiplier that greatly improves the likelihood of better results in all other areas. In other words, anything and everything that can be done to make that happen should be a very high priority.
For sure it’s seen as important, but it’s not clear where it stacks in terms of priorities. I would make the case that empirically, it’s the #1 goal, and, if the Strategic Plan is updated I would argue that this priority should be clearly stated. Further, there are a number of supporting objectives that could be undertaken to facilitate achieving this goal to include attending TV rights conferences and the hiring of consultants to facilitate coordination between networks and handball content owners. It might even justify the use of limited funds and resources to produce USA based TV content. Or even… in some instances pay to have content aired.
One aspect that helps. Getting handball on TV in the U.S. isn’t just a USA Team Handball goal, but pretty much a goal of anyone who cares about the sport. In particular, content owners like the IHF and EHF would stand to benefit the most from making it happen. Further, developments like OTT web streaming are making it more feasible than it was in the past.
Is getting handball on TV a panacea? The silver bullet to all our problems? I, for one, am generally not prone to such profound, blanket statements, but… yeah it pretty much is. Without a doubt, it is the one thing that could overnight change everything.
That wraps up the review of what USA Team Handball’s future plans are. At least what has been officially documented. But, are there unofficial, undocumented plans as well? It seems that there may be and I will address what those plans are next.
Yes, in theory, any random college could make a title run.
I’m not generally one to make audacious predictions because… well, because data and thorough analysis usually result in the conclusion that it’s just not going to happen. But, sometimes audacity is indeed possible.
A former intern for the Pardon My Take (PMT) Podcast recently got a hold of a handball and has issued a few team handball related tweets (1, 2, 3). It’s always great when the sport acquires a new fan, but it also got me to thinking.
Could Billy Football or someone else, coax a few friends, start a brand new club and come out of nowhere to win a national collegiate handball?
On the surface, it seems crazy to even consider this as a possibility. How could a brand new club with totally inexperienced players win a national title? C’mon… And, for almost any other sport in the U.S. it would indeed be a crazy proposition. Most sports are just too established for some upstart to knock over the apple cart without a massive injection of resources and stellar recruiting.
But, team handball is not “most sports” in the U.S. Here’s why it could be done.
Few Contenders: There are currently only 15 Men’s collegiate programs in the U.S. And, only a handful of those programs are firmly established.
Minor Experience Gap: Colleges are guaranteed to lose athletes each year to graduation. And, since most athletes are brand new to handball every college has to constantly bring brand new handball players up to speed. Thus, even a brand new program has only a 1 to 2 years gap in experience.
Modest Raw Athletic Talent: The current collegiate handball game has several athletes with solid athletic talent, but overall the level of athleticism is fairly modest. This, of course, makes sense. The best athletes tend to get college scholarships in other sports.
So, what’s the blueprint for such audacity? Here’s what it would take:
Great Recruiting: Not traditional recruiting whereby a coaching staff convinces great high school athletes to commit to attending their college. But, in this case great recruiting to get the best possible athletes already on campus to commit to this club sport.
Great Handball Coaching: Taking great athletes and turning them into capable handball players is easier said than done. But, make no mistake. It can be done. And, a good coach could accomplish such a transition relatively quickly. Keep in mind… we’re not talking about a 5 year project to win an Olympic Gold Medal, but a much more feasible collegiate title.
Great Organization: There are a lot of nuts and bolts logistical issues that go into successfully running a collegiate club. From finding a time and place to practice, to uniforms, to transportation to tournaments. It doesn’t just happen. It takes planning and preparation.
Regular Competition Against Quality Opponents: Last, but not least, teams and players need to be tested in competition. And, generally that means getting your butt kicked by teams that are better than you so you can learn how to win.
So, could some random D3 College in say, western Massachusetts tick off these 4 boxes? Well, it’s possible, but right now, I would say they probably could only check off 3. Here’s what could be done.
Recruiting. In theory, it would be good to have some athletes that already know each other. Perhaps a group of seniors finishing off their D3 football careers could be coaxed into trying handball for a season. Ten such athletes would be a good core group to start with. Not future NFL players, but I suspect enough raw athletic talent to eclipse every other current collegiate handball squad, but perhaps West Point.
Handball Coaching. Unless there is some handball expert living quietly in the Berkshires I suspect this is going to be a problem. Maybe, however, some capable coach could visit for a handball boot camp. This might take some PMT sponsorship.
Organization. A coach or team captain with organizational skills is a must. It just requires someone to step up and take the lead.
Regular Competition. Western Massachusetts is in driving range of both Boston and New York City. A trip to Montreal wouldn’t be too hard either. If desired, there would be plenty of opportunities to play and learn the game.
The Wild Card: Pardon My Take Sponsorship
So while this might be possible, I’m thinking it’s going to need a little extra jolt to actually happen. And, there probably could be no better jolt than a little Pardon My Take sponsorship. What would that entail? Some publicity to encourage on the fence recruits, enticing a name coach to help out and for sure, some splashy uniforms.
Hey Big Cat and PFT Commenter: I know an Olympic Gold medal is the end goal, but you know what: Helping some random college come out of nowhere win a Collegiate National Championship would be pretty cool too. And, it would be great proof of concept trial run before embarking on a far greater challenge.
Would it be easy? No. It would take a lot of work, some humility and a lot of commitment. The other collegiate programs might not be world beaters, but there are some quality athletes out there and they have a head start in terms of experience. But, make no mistake it could be done.
Any Other Takers?
This, actually, is not the first time I’ve had such audacious thoughts regarding our college game. In 1976, Air Force almost won an open club title with a roster mostly composed of their D1 hoops tean (doesn’t hurt to have two future Olympians playing). It doesn’t take much imagination to envision a gifted group of athletes winning just a college title.
Three years ago, Virginia practically did exactly what I’ve described, losing to West Point in a close final, albeit it wasn’t done in a year, but was more of a 3 year effort. And, somewhat incredibly, they accomplished what they did without the benefit of a coach. (Podcast with UVA Handball: Link) I suspect if Virginia had had a coach with the requisite handball knowledge, recruiting and organizational skills they probably would have won a couple national titles. Might even have started a dynasty.
The reality is that right now a juggernaut college team could probably be created about anywhere in the U.S. Sure, it wouldn’t be easy and some locations would be more challenging… but, make no mistake it could be done. In fact, I’ve told multiple aspiring coaches in the U.S., that if they really want to show how good of a coach they are, they should start a college program from scratch and take that program to a national title.
Iowa Central Junior College: D1AA Collegiate Rugby Champions: Could that possibly happen with Team Handball?
As rugby in the U.S. is the closest parallel to what handball might someday be in the U.S., I regularly listen to several rugby related podcasts. It’s kind of fun to listen to discussion related to their NGB, their fledgling pro league or their college game and simply switch the word “rugby” with “handball” to see if it still rings true. Quite often it does and quite often it gets me wondering whether some development or effort being tried there could be applied in a handball context.
How does a small college beat far larger colleges?
How does a Junior College (2 year program) compete with traditional colleges (4 year programs)?
How does a coach recruit “anyone” to come to Fort Dodge, Iowa? Let alone international students and inner city kids from Florida? (FYI: I’m from a small town in Iowa; This is truly amazing)
This program started from scratch just 6 years ago. In that time they’ve jumped 2 levels of play. Sometimes by design… sometimes because the other schools kicked them out because they were too good.
Some bigger picture thoughts:
It’s not the first time that the JUCO (Junior College) route has been considered for team handball: Link
Not every young adult is inclined to get a 4 year degree. This could be a great path, a better path for some athletes.
But, some of these athletes do indeed continue their education at a four year school. Could North Carolina, Texas A&M and other schools be in a recruiting war for talent some day?
Not sure where such a program would be started, but based on what Iowa Central has overcome and accomplished, it clearly could be done for team handball.
Recent Google Trend Data for “Handball” in the U.S.
The past few months have sure resulted in a lot of handball buzz in the U.S. Here’s a rundown of the events that have given handball more attention than normal:
December: NBC broadcast the 2019 Women’s World Championships.
January: The 2020 Men’s European Championships were broadcast on beIN Sports and ESPN showed two handball related plays of the day on SportsCenter.
February/March: Cutlergate results in a slow burn of Twitter spats and handball discussion on other shows like ESPN’s Highly Questionable. Pardon My Take even devotes an entire segment to discuss handball with former pro, Xavier O’Callaghan.
April 13-19: The NBC Olympic Channel is coaxed by USA Team Handball to essentially turn itself into the handball channel with around 12-16 hours daily of 2019 Men’s and Women’s World Championship match broadcasts.
Quantifying the Buzz
So, anecdotally, there’s little doubt that handball has been granted some extra attention. It can be challenging, however, to quantify the buzz. To get a handle as to what is actually happening in terms of handball interest.
Social media engagement and reach can be tracked. I periodically track followers and likes for the major platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and, no surprise, numbers are up, but not a whole lot more than they would be assuming normal growth platforms. Here’s a simple tabulation of growth since 29 November with the USA Team Handball and Team Handball News social media platforms:
Keep in mind that percentage growth is generally easier when you start. Which explains why the percentage growth for Team Handball News on Instagram looks great when in reality it’s pretty paltry.
Overall, there’s been some decent growth, particularly with Twitter, but it’s hard to guage how much of that can be attributed to growth that would have occurred anyway. And, further, how much of this growth is simply a result of existing handball fans jumping on board? In particular, if your desire is to grow the game in the U.S., it’s kind of hollow to add social media followers from other parts of the world.
Google Trends Data
The best tool I’ve found for tracking interest is Google Trends. Google Trends allows users to see the relative popularity of specific search topics by region for a specified time period. It’s not perfect and it has it’s limitations, but it does provide a pretty good snapshot. After all, how many Americans can remember when and where they typed in “handball” or “team handball” into Google for the first time? It’s probably close to 100% and most folks can remember exactly what triggered their curiosity.
With that in mind here’s some analysis of “handball” searches on Google Trends.
“Handball” Google Trends (USA Only) (1 Dec 2019 – 22 Apr 2020)
Here’s a look at what’s happened since last December.
#1 Spike: Sunday, 26 January when the Men’s European Championship finals took place.
#2 Spike: This past Sunday when the NBC Olympic Channel broadcast wall to wall coverage of the semifinals and medal matches for both the Men’s and Women’s 2019 World Championships.
#3 Spike: 18 December which coincides with the rebroadcast of the Women’s WC final 3 days after it was completed on the NBC Sports Network Channel.
Other Spikes: Rounding out the five month period are a number of different spikes which are a bit harder to correlate.
Key Takeaways
Men’s handball trumps Women’s handball. Despite being on a network (beIN Sports) seen in fewer home it triggered far more searches.
Better TV Networks mean more searches. A late night rebroadcast on the NBC Sports Network trumps both the NBC Olympic Channel and beIN Sports. An existing handball fan always figures out a way to watch the big match. Not so with a newbie. The NBC Sports Network is seen in over twice as many homes as the Olympic Channel and 4 times as many homes as beIN Sports.
The Jay Cutler/Pardon My Take Brouhaha did result in a plus up. Those spikes in February/March would not be there otherwise. But those plus ups still aren’t quite as good as TV broadcasts.
Handball” Google Trends (World) (1 Dec 2019 – 22 Apr 2020)
For reference, here’s what happened in the entire world during the same time period. Again, the difference been Men’s and Women’s handball is very pronounced. There are also some small spikes in February and March. Perhaps that’s a knock on effect from the Handball World rising up in anger with Jay Cutler, but it could also be interest generated by the Champions League and other competitions.
“Handball” Google Trends (USA Only) (Apr 2015 – Apr 2020)
Here’s an overview of Google searches for the past 5 years in the U.S..
Takeaways
The impact of the Olympics in terms of the interest it generates is unmatched. Really, it’s hard to understate its impact in the U.S.
The Men’s WC or EC in January of every year is the only other event that regularly registers. In relative terms to the Olympics, however, it pales in comparison.
Moving the WC to the NBC Olympic Channel has helped. The best WC spike occurred in Jan 2019. Not coincidentally, the Olympic Channel is seen in twice as many homes as beIN Sports.
Notable soccer handballs also spike… even in the U.S. This demonstrates the challenge handball has in America.
The recent NBC Olympic Channel experiment has a nice little spike. It clearly resulted in some more searches and discovery of handball. It would be awesome if that spike was bigger, but I’ll take it. For sure, it’s better than a flat line.
The Jay Cutler controversy doesn’t really register. This is not to say it still wasn’t nice to have that engagement, just that it didn’t do as much as we might think it did.
“Handball” Google Trends (World) (Apr 2015 – Apr 2020)
Here’s what the last 5 years look like for the world.
Key Takeaways
The Olympics just doesn’t mean as much to the rest of the world. At the Olympics, handball is just another sport and has to fight for interest. Whereas as the annual big tourney in January every year handball takes center stage.
Again, the relative interest between Men’s and Women’s handball is very clear. The little spike (Dec) followed by the big spike (Jan) happens like clockwork.
Overall Conclusions
The way we consume and talk about sports is evolving and changing. The cool Instagram clip, the banter on Twitter, cool TikTok videos… That’s how a lot of sports are consumed today. I’ve got two teenage daughters… they’re not big sports fans, but I’ve seen it first hand how big a role social media is playing in their lives.
However, TV is still the king of sports consumption. Whether via traditional networks or streaming outlets, true fans are gained from watching a match. This is not to say social media isn’t important… It is. But, in most cases it’s a reflection of what happens after someone sees handball and discovers it. Not the other way around.
Pretty much since its inception USA Team Handball has lacked sufficient funding to accomplish what it would like to in terms of National Team performance, grass roots development and anything else. So, it should come as no surprise that the Strategic Plan has some ambitious goals and targets. Page 4, Section 2) of the Strategic Plan covers fundraising:
Goal A focuses on near term hires and the establishment of retired executive volunteer and internship programs to support fundraising activity. To date, just the new CEO, Barry Siff, has been hired. There’s no data available yet as to how much new funding has come in, but Verizon has come on board as founding parner. It’s reportedly not a huge amount, but there is real potential for it to leading to more sponsors and sponsorship dollars.
Goal B discusses having a fundraising retreat and developing a fundraising plan. To my knowledge there has been no retreat or specific fundraising plan developed, although surely efforts to raise funds are ongoing.
Goal C discusses a long term strategic plan for fundraising. Again, I’m not aware of any strategic plan having been developed, but one can assume some sort of strategy is being developed. It has been noted that the Verizon deal provides credibility and can be a catalyst for future deals. Three of the sub-bullets refer to using Salesforce.com as a sponsorship platform, but if this platform has been acquired there’s been no announcement. For membership purposes the Sport:80 platform has now been adopted and it does have donation functionality, although not on the level of salesforce.
Goal D highlights focuses on membership and alumni as a source for annual giving. To date, I’m not aware of any new campaigns beyond the usual requests for donations.
Appendix A has several targets listed for specific time periods, but in many cases it’s not very clear what is actually attended.
Appendix A references “Finance” several times with a dollar value listed at the end of each quarter along with the amount of money the Board of Directors should raise in the preceding 2 fiscal quarters. It’s not clear to me what those end of Qtr dollar figures are supposed to mean. (Revenue? Cash on hand? Neither seem to make sense). The amount of money that the Board of Directors is supposed to have raised in the near term seem pretty ambitious and I suspect those targets haven’t been met.
End 4th Qtr 2018: $5,000
BOD raises $100K
End 2nd Qtr 2019: $100K
BOD raises $250K
End 4th Qtr 2019: $500K
BOD raises $250K
End 2nd Qtr 2020: $650K
BOD raises $500K
End 4th Qtr 2020: $750K
BOD raises $500K
End 4th Qtr 2024: $5M
“CEO raising money”
End 4th Qtr 2028: $10M
“CEO raising money”
Appendix A references membership several times with targets for the # of members and revenue from membership. No word as to whether these targets have been met. I suspect that membership hasn’t grown much and may have even gone down in 2020 due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
End 4th Qtr 2018: 816/$57K
End 2nd Qtr 2019: 850/$60K
End 4th Qtr 2019: 900/$63K
End 2nd Qtr 2020: 1,000/
End 4th Qtr 2020: 1,200/$84K
End 4th Qtr 2024: 5,000/$350K
End 4th Qtr 2028: 5,000/$350K
Appendix A references sponsors several times with targets for the # of sponsors and revenue from sponsorship. It’s not entirely clear what these numbers mean, but I think the first number refers to the # of sponsors and the 2nd number refers to the total amount of sponsorship dollars. I suspect that the 2018-2020 targets have not been met. At one time the USA website had a page that listed partners/sponsors, but it doesn’t appear that page exists now. To date there have been 2 sponsorship announcements with Verizon and Molten. One can also assume that the jersey sponsorship with Eldera is still in place. Again, I don’t think any of these near term targets have been met.
End 4th Qtr 2018: 9/$824K
End 2nd Qtr 2019: 10/$900K
End 4th Qtr 2019: 11/$1M
End 2nd Qtr 2020: 13/$1.5M
End 4th Qtr 2020: 15/$2M
End 4th Qtr 2024: 15/$5M
End 4th Qtr 2028: 15/$5M
Discussion
In my opinion, the Fundraising section of the Strategic Plan needs to be totally rewritten. Parts of it are overly solution specific while other parts are overly vague. The specific dollar value targets aren’t clearly defined and the targets in many cases are so ambitious that even far more established team sport NGBs would be unlikely to meet them. Add, the current economic reality of the Coronavirus Pandemic and it’s even more clear that it’s time to start over.
What should such a rewrite include? For starters, realistic targets based in part on the fundraising performance of similar team sport federations. I would also suggest that top level strategies be identified for the major revenue categories: Grants, Sponsorship, Membership and Events.
As a reference, take a look at comparable NGB performance for 2013-2016. (The last quadrennial for which public available financial data is available.)
It only takes a glance to quickly ascertain that the desired fundraising targets are out of whack, particularly in terms of sponsorship. I guess it’s theoretically possible that Team Handball can develop some fundraising strategies that would leave these more established sports in the dust. Possible… But, really unlikely.
And, while aspirational goals can be OK sometimes, they’re not OK for realistic strategic planning. This is because plans have to match reality as to what can actually be done. And, this is really true in regards to funding because it is pointless to have grand plans if the funding to implement them won’t be available.
This assessment for Africa was a bit more challenging than the European assessment. Here are some notes as to why and how I put together this map.
I’ve received less feedback and have less of a sense as to the popularity of sports in Africa.
With less resources available, there are fewer team sports (beyond soccer) played in Africa. Or, if they are played they are not played on the same scale that they are played in Europe. Accordingly, determining the 2nd or 3rd most popular sport in some nations is a pointless exercise. Or, roughly similar to comparing the popularity of the 4th or 5th most popular sports in nations with more resources.
I reviewed national team participation and performance in the African Men’s and Women’s Championships as a way to help measure handball’s popularity in a country. This is an imperfect tool, but it does provide some insight as to a sports popularity. Roughly this equates to
Regular medal winner (blue/green)
Regularly participated (yellow)
Periodically participated (orange)
Infrequently or never participated, but has played in IHF Trophy events (red)
Never participated, including IHF Trophy events (white)
Where is handball popular?
How popular is handball compared to other sports?
Those are definitely a couple of questions that I’ve been asked quite a few times. In 2005 I tackled those questions in one of my very first blog posts. Back then it was often stated that handball was the 2nd most popular team sport. Well, it would be totally awesome if that were true, but alas it’s not… not even close. In fact, even in Europe where handball is most popular there are only a handful of countries where our sport definitely takes 2nd place.
Methodology (or the Lack of One)
As an engineer I generally prefer to deal with data as opposed to gut feelings and anecdotal information. For sure there are a lot of different criteria that one could use to measure popularity. Here’s a laundry list for you:
# of participants
# of registered federation members
# of clubs
Attendance at matches
Frequency of TV broadcasts and ratings
Existence of a professional league
The salaries of professional players
Interest in national team performance
Social media interest.
Each of those criteria have merit, but there are several problems.
This data is not readily available on a country by country basis
The accuracy of the data that is available is often suspect or open to interpretation
The relative importance of each criterion is wide open to debate
Bottom line: An exercise to carefully weigh all of these criteria in a systematic reliable way is pretty much impossible.
That being said in most cases it’s fairly easy to weigh all those criteria and to come up with a ranking of the top 3 sports in just about any country. And, a ranking that most objective sports fans of that country would agree on without a whole lot of debate.
There’s a couple of reasons why this is true.
In most countries there is one dominant team sport and that sport is football (soccer). Practically no one will even credibly argue against soccer’s dominance. So off the top, we’re now only talking about 2nd and 3rd place.
And, again in most (but, not all) countries, #2 is often pretty well established based on the criteria above. Even without hard numbers the answer is obvious to people that live there.
All this being said, there are some countries, however, where handball’s place in the pecking order is open to debate. A debate, for the reasons listed earlier is pretty hard to resolve. So, instead of resolving I’ve decided to use the lack of a resolution as a way to help classify the sport’s popularity.
Classification (Key)
Here’s a few notes on how I’ve classified popularity.
Definitely the 2nd most popular team sport:
Countries where handball is 2nd in a preponderance of the criteria
Either the 2nd or 3rd most popular team sport:
Countries where there could be a legitimate debate between 2 sports as to which is 2nd or 3rd
Countries where handball is clearly 3rd
A major sport with a significant presence
Countries where the ranking becomes muddled from 3rd place on down, but handball is still clearly a major sport that captures significant attention
A minor sport with some presence
Countries where the ranking becomes muddled from 3rd place on down, but Handball is more of a minor sport with a small, but dedicated following.
A very minor sport with a limited presence
Countries where the sport’s ranking is somewhat moot because it’s hard to compare perhaps the 6th or 7th most popular team sport. Overall, participation numbers are small and the sport is seen as a curiosity by most of the citizens of that country.
A sport that is practically non-existent
Countries where there are no national teams, leagues or clubs.
A few more thoughts
There is a rough pecking order from top to bottom. Blue is top; Green is next, etc.
This isn’t a perfect representation. And, one could argue for even more gradation. For instance, one could take the nations in yellow and create a rough pecking order.
What about individual sports? If you really wanted to further complicate matters we could add Formula 1, UFC and Tennis. I didn’t want to go there.
What do you think?
This compilation/depiction isn’t set in stone. It’s just one man’s opinion influenced by feedback. If I’ve missed the boat let me know via email or social media and I’ll reconsider updating the map.
Email: john.ryan@teamhandballnews.com Facebook: Link Twitter: Link Instagram: Link
Also, I’ll be creating similar maps for the other continents and I could use some feedback on Asia and the Americas.
Handball Athletes, Future 2nd Lts and Air Force Pilots L to R (Brian Brown, Nate Luther, Mark Simpson, Richard Vaughn, Austin Faulkner and Will Walker. Other Club Seniors headed to pilot training are Anthony Sanders and Pen Pagel)
ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt has been using his Sports Center platform to honor High School and College Seniors who didn’t get to finish their final season. I respectfully submit Air Force Team Handball’s Eight Graduating Seniors for #SeniorNight.
A lot can happen in just a month. A lot.
Air Force Team Handball: Just One Month Ago
On February 28-29, 2020, I had the opportunity to watch Air Force go 4-0 to take the title in their own Air Force Invitational. I had seen them play several times in the past few years and without a doubt I had never seen them play so well. A comprehensive 26-18 victory over North Carolina on Saturday and then an exciting last second, 28-27 victory over Dallas THC (Video) to take the title on Sunday.
Solid defense, smart shots on offense, limited turnovers. Individually some fine play, but clearly a collective team performance. After their victory over Dallas I made a point of telling the team that it was the best I’d seen an Air Force team play in years and made a prediction that was actually more of a declaration:
“Play like you did this weekend and you guys will beat West Point and win a national title.”
A bold statement since West Point has won 14 straight national titles and Air Force hasn’t beat them since 2008. Bold, but one that I stand by and not just because I’m a biased AF Academy graduate. In a different world maybe I would be sitting right now in the Columbus, OH airport writing about such a victory in the recently completed Gold Medal match at the 2020 College National Championships.
But, that’s not the world were living in now. And, it sucks… It sucks big time. Sucks for any handball player from any school that would have played in the Collegiate Tourney this past weekend. Sucks especially for the seniors.
For the eight graduating seniors at Air Force and the journey they’ve had it’s surely been really tough. Most of these eight seniors have been playing handball together all four years. They went from basic cadets with little or no knowledge that handball even existed as a sport to passionate athletes that have bonded over four years of practice and competition. The Collegiate National Championships would have been the culmination of that journey. One last opportunity to play for a title.
Like everyone the Cadet’s lives were upended by the Coronavirus Pandemic. But, this past month they’ve also been impacted in additional ways.
Just two weeks after the AF Invitational the Air Force Academy cancelled Spring Break. Most of the Air Force team had been looking forward to a trip to the Netherlands for a training camp and competition. Unlike most colleges, however, not everyone was sent home. Instead, just the Freshman, Sophomores and Juniors were sent home while the Seniors remained on campus to help ensure their on time graduation and entry into the Air Force. Additionally, to facilitate social distancing, all the Senior Cadets were moved into their own dorm rooms spread out as much as possible in the Academy’s two dorms. Classes then resumed online and for the seniors it became a surreal existence as the roughly 1,000 cadets left on campus were essentially “alone” together with strict limits on any interaction.
Needless to say this was not an ideal situation and when last week 2 cadets committed suicide within 3 days of each other the Air Force went into crisis mode. After much discussion social distancing rules were relaxed and it was decided to speed up graduation to April 18th. To give you some idea of the extraordinary times we live in this is the first service Academy to graduate early since West Point had cadets do so during World War II.
So now the 8 seniors will graduate early and all 8 will be headed to pilot training. (Contrary to what you might think not everybody who goes to the Academy becomes a pilot and for 100% of a sports club team to do so is kind of special.) Being a pilot is surely a dream and goal they’ve been working towards many years before heading to the Academy.
The minor downside for these 8: Being an Air Force pilot and continuing your handball career isn’t an easy or practical thing to do. Perhaps some of these guys will find their way to an open club nationals on down the line, but more likely than not several have played not just their last collegiate handball match, but their last handball match ever.
In a different world that last match would have taken place this past weekend. That’s a bummer… for them… for you… for me… for everybody.
On the plus side. These eight are going to be serving our country for years to come. And, we couldn’t ask for a better group of young men to do so.
