Hey, media person, just discovering handball: Think you’ve got a “new” idea on how the U.S. can win Olympic Handball Gold? Think again… Check out these articles dating back from 1996.
Multiple U.S. betting sites now offer handball odds. Here are some links to Olympic Handball odds in Colorado. The availability in your jurisdiction may vary.
France and Norway are the co-favorites to take the Gold and the odds have shortened in France’s favor, probably due to some uncertainty with an injury to Norway’s Henny Reistad.
MEN
France and Denmark are the co-favorites for the men. They play in the same group, but the expectation is that they will both proceed through the knockout round to an eventual gold medal rematch.
Good news for Cord Cutters: Last Olympics, if you didn’t have NBC via cable, satellite or some other platform you were out of luck. This time around all Olympics content will be available via NBC’s streaming service, Peacock.
TV Broadcasts
NBC has the rights to all Olympic content in the USA and they currently plan to produce 2-3 handball matches/day for broadcast on NBC TV networks. Some matches will be broadcast live, but if past Olympics are a guide, most will will be shown on a tape delay basis. A quick look ahead at the schedule shows that most matches be shown on the USA Network with a few on E! and CNBC. There are also temporary channels being set up called Paris Extra 1 and Paris Extra 2.
Web Streaming
NBC will be streaming every handball match live and on demand. And, there will be two ways that viewers can access the web streams.
If you already have NBC through a cable, satellite or another platform like Fubo or YouTube TV you will be able to stream content after authenticating your subscription. You do not need a Peacock subscription.
If you are a cord cutter, however, your best option will be to subscribe to NBC’s streaming service, Peacock for access to all of NBC’s Olympic content
You can select “TV & Digital” or “TV only” The TV & Digital option will show you every single match as every match is streamed while the TV Only option will show you the traditional broadcast viewings
As Handball is one of the few sports starting before the opening ceremonies on Friday there will be 3 live broadcasts Thurdsay all aired on the USA network at 3 AM, 5 AM and 1 PM (US ET)
The first 12 days of competition will have 6 matches played each day with the same starting times. Those times are
Paris (Local): 0900, 1100, 1400, 1600, 1900, 2100
US (ET): 0300, 0500, 0800, 1000, 1300, 1500
With some matches being played early in the morning, U.S. time, you may want to watch those matches later in the day without knowing the score. Thankfully, it appears that the NBC schedule page will be spoiler free.
Commentators
NBC TV broadcasts will have commentary with Eric Frede and Dawn Lewis. Digitally streamed matches will use the Olympic Broadcast Service feed and will have commentary from Paul Bray, Mark Hawkins and others. Here’s some more information on the commentators:
Eric Frede (NBC Play by Play): Eric Frede is a veteran commentator based in New England who has called multiple sports to include football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, softball, volleyball, tennis, track and field and auto racing
Dawn Allinger Lewis (NBC Color/Expert): Lewis was a member of the 1996 U.S. Women’s Olympic Handball squad and this will be her 6th straight Olympics with NBC
Paul Pray (OBS): Bray is the dean of handball commentators and has been calling handball matches for over 30 years. Previously he was also the President of British Handball
There are several website options for getting your Olympic handball information. However, with the Olympics starting early in the morning in the U.S. you might want to strategize when and where you get your information, particularly if you want to watch matches that were played while you were sleeping without knowing the result ahead of time.
Olympic Handball Schedule and Results
Here are some websites where you can find the latest results and what matches are coming up along with some pros and cons for each website:
The IHF website is the best place to get detailed information, but if you don’t want to know the scores of already played matches it’s not a good place to avoid spoilers
The NBC schedule page will be the go to destination for anyone living in the U.S. wanting to watch handball during the Olympics. Each match has a link to either the Live or On Demand video and it automatically adjusts the schedule to your time zone. Very importantly, the site also doesn’t have spoilers with the results of the matches.
I’m a huge fan of the Wikipedia pages for major handball competitions as most of the information I’m looking for is all in one place at an easy to navigate website without a lot of bells and whistles.
Competition Format
Both the Men’s and Women’s competition have the same relatively straightforward competition format.
GROUP PLAY: The 12 teams are divided into two groups of 6 and play a round robin
Matches during group play can end in a draw
The top 4 teams from each group advance to an 8 team knockout tourney
Rules for ranking and tiebreakers:
Points (2 for a win; 1 for a draw)
Head-to-head points
Head-to-head goal difference
Head-to-head goals scored
All matches goal difference
All matches goals scored
Draw lots
KNOCKOUT TOURNEY
Matches during the knockout tourney cannot end in a draw
If the match is tied at the end of regulation two five minute periods of Extra Time are played
If the match is still tied after the first two periods of Extra Time another Extra Time with two more five minute periods is played
If the match is still tied after the 2nd Extra Time a penalty shoot out with similar rules to soccer is played until there is a winner.
Quarterfinal pairings
One half of the bracket will be (A1 vs B4) and (B2 vs A3)
The other half of the bracket will be (B1 vs A4) and (A2 vs B3)
The quarterfinal winners advance to the semifinals.
The semifinal winners play for gold and the semifinal losers play for bronze.
Notes:
Throughout Group Play and the Knockout Tournaments, the men and women will alternate playing days and rest days.
The women’s competiton actually starts on Thursday, 25 July, the day before the opening ceremonies. There is no competition on Friday, 26 July, the day of opening ceremeonies and then the Men start play on Saturday, 27 July.
Group play matches will be played at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles and then the rest of the competition starting with the quarterfinals will move to the Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille.
