American sports leagues have successfully invaded Europe. It’s high time for European handball to invade America.

In Part 7, I listed several reasons why for many years European handball entities did little to develop the American market.  In this part, I highlight how while Europe has opened its eyes to the possibilities, many of its initial efforts have faltered.  (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6)

A European Awakening

For many years European handball entities weren’t very much engaged in the development of Team Handball in the U.S.  The litany of reasons for this include basic indifference, a belief that the U.S. should develop Team Handball on its own, market competition from other sports,  the amateur focus in Europe, an unwillingness to invest, not understanding the American marketplace and ineffective American Federation appeals for help. The good news is that while these challenges still exist they are largely becoming passé as professional European leagues and Federations have awakened to the possibility of American revenue streams.

This has happened primarily for a couple of reasons.  First, European handball executives couldn’t have been blind to an American sports invasion in Europe.  Every kid wearing a Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks jersey is one not wearing a Pascal Hens, Hamburg jersey.   Every NBA TV broadcast means a little less interest and money being spent on a Handball Bundesliga broadcast.   Ouch. That’s hitting the old pocketbook.  But, it also surely wasn’t lost upon some handball executive that if the NBA can sign big TV contracts and get kids to wear NBA jerseys, then maybe Handball could do the same thing to the U.S.  market.  Or as the South Korean women’s national team often demonstrates, sometime the best defense is a good offense.

Secondly, while there’s sure to be some trepidation in regards to a risky expansion in reverse, European soccer has proven that it can indeed be done. What once was a trickle of minor TV contract deals to get the European foot in the door has evolved into “no kidding” bidding wars.  Case in point was the recent NBC purchase of the English Premier League (EPL) rights for $80-85 million/annually.  This was four times what Fox was paying previously and, get this, you couldn’t even find any soccer matches on TV anywhere in the U.S. not too long ago.  That’s right a bidding war for something nobody, but a few Expats would have watched a dozen years ago.  Sacrilege of sacrilege, these sports networks are even reporting soccer scores on the bottom trailer during broadcasts of American Football games.  I guess I’m an old timer, but I still do a double take when I see Norwich 2, Aston Villa 1; Man U. 3, Reading 0; scroll across the screen.  And call me crazy, but if the EPL can get $85 million, surely the German Bundesliga can get a meaningful fraction of that at some point.  Even 1/100th of $85 million is better than no contract at all.

Stumbles Along the Way

So, with an ongoing American sports invasion in Europe and soccer proving that America could also be plucked, European entities have dipped their toes in the U.S. market.  As often happens, however, there has been some false starts and failures.  Most notably, live events on U.S. soil have only had marginal success.  The French League’s final four cup in Miami (2009) was well staged, but had dismal attendance.  The Poland-Germany match in Chicago (2010) was better attended, but didn’t create the desired post match buzz.  In hind sight it’s clear that these events didn’t fully take into account the basic awareness problem the sport faces in the U.S.  You can’t just simply fly to the states and expect Americans to buy tickets for a sport the bulk of them don’t even know exists.  Well, I guess you can, but there are surely more effective ways to spend your money at this stage of the sport’s development in the U.S.

Showcases on U.S. soil can make sense, but only if they are structured to the current market.  A perfect example of that is the New York City Tournament and All Star Game held the past 3 years as part of a New Year’s Eve package primarily for German tourists; a much smaller event which has a chance to grow.  No, in order to properly stage a big event, you first need to grow your market.  Case in point, are the NFL regular season matches in London that now sell out 80,000 strong.  The NFL plotted this out over many years, slowly but surely developing a fan base in the UK that were hungry to see a live match.

And how was such a fan base developed?  Through TV, of course.  In fact, it’s kind of amazing when you think about it.  American Football had no historical background whatsoever in the UK.  Only a handful of people even play it there today, yet now there’s even talk of a London franchise.

Finally, on TV, but on the right channels?

Encouragingly, European entities have recently been able to break into the U.S. TV market.  The German Bundesliga was first on the scene with matches available first on the “My Sports Germany” Network, and now with Univision Deportes.  The EHF Champions League has also been available, first with MHz and now with beIN Sport and Univision Deportes.  The bad news, however, is that these networks are way off the beaten path.  In many parts of the U.S. they are either not available or require an a la carte or top tier purchase option with a Cable or Satellite TV provider.  In other words, die hard fans can now seek out and find Team Handball on TV, but the likelihood of new American fans stumbling upon Team Handball is pretty slim.

I’m not privy to the negotiations that resulted in Team Handball rights being sold to beIN Sport and Univision Deportes, so I have no idea how much these networks paid and whether any other networks were courted.  Further it’s unclear as to whether other factors such as a network’s market reach factored into the awarding of TV rights.  Let me put it another way.  If ESPN (the #1 behemoth in the U.S. with near total market reach) showed even the slightest inkling of interest (FYI: this suggests they had an inkling) into broadcasting the sport the EHF and/or HBL should have been prepared to bow down and serenade ESPN HQ in Bristol, Connecticut.  Such a possibility would be the ultimate game changer for the sports development in the U.S.  Seriously, every other commentary on this website would start with sentences like, “Before ESPN broadcast Team Handball or “After ESPN….yadda yadda yadda.”  Instead of a glorious two weeks of attention every 4 years during the Olympics there would be a constant stream of new fans and players picking up the sport.

A job too important to give to a middleman

Of course, I don’t know how beIN Sport and Univision Deportes were chosen for broadcast.  Perhaps, they were the only ones interested.  I do know, however, that in the recent past, that this website actually broke the news to one European Handball entity that their matches were now being broadcast in the U.S.  How could that possibly be, you might ask.   Well, it was certainly something that had me scratching my head.  It turns out that the primary reason for this was the farming out of TV rights to a 3rd party to distribute and make deals in foreign markets.   As I understand it, the 3rd party then gets compensated for each deal that’s made around the world.  Again, I’m not privy to the contract specifics, but such an arrangement probably makes it more likely that the highest bidder is going to win.  After all, the middleman has a short term contract and wants to make money.

The trade off of less money (heck, even paying ESPN) for greater exposure is simply not there for a middleman.  That’s not to say that money shouldn’t play a factor, but the right, smaller deal now could lead to better deals later.  Case in point was the EPL decision to go with NBC when reportedly beIN Sport was offering more money.  According to NBC Executive, Jon Miller, EPL Representatives “understand how a property can be hamstrung if it doesn’t have distribution.”  I’m not so sure, however, that the same can be said for European Handball representatives.

Going further, there’s probably a pretty good case to me made that the Europeans should have at least 1 person, if not a fully staffed office section, 100% devoted to the growth of foreign markets like the USA, China and India.  For sure, the U.S. Leagues have done so.  In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the staff for NBA Global is bigger than the combined staffs of the EHF, IHF, HBL and the Liga Asobal.

Closing Thoughts on the Awareness Problem

I’ve gotten some negative feedback regarding my characterization of the awareness problem the sport faces in the U.S.  I’ve been told that I’m simply a Negative Nelly for exaggerating the problem and giving it too much prominence.  Essentially, by exposing the problem I’m making too strong of a case to Europeans and TV executives that it’s really mission impossible and they would foolish to waste time and money on something that’s never going to happen.

As you might expect I don’t buy that argument for a second.  I’ll just re-emphasize the crazy opportunity this awareness shortcoming presents.  The fact that such a great sport, tailor made for TV viewing has around 300 fans in this country is really unfathomable.  Despite all the challenges and obstacles I firmly believe that this sport will become a part of the American Sports landscape.  It’s not a question of if, but when?

So, I’ve now covered the underlying reasons why the U.S. didn’t qualify for the Olympics.  Namely the U.S. hasn’t had the funding/resources and that there’s a basic awareness/marketing problem which precludes the ability to secure more funding/resources.  Next, I’ll tackle some management/leadership shortcomings that have at times exacerbated the problems that USA Team Handball has faced.  

(Editor’s note:  At this time I haven’t delved into these shortcomings.  This currently is the last part of this series, but it may continue at some point in the future.)

Who Cares?: For many years this was the European attitude towards the development of Team Handball in the U.S.

In Part 5, I tried to fully capture the extent of Team Handball’s basic awareness problem in the U.S.  In part 6, I explained how more TV broadcasts could solve that exposure problem, but that a catch 22 TV paradox has kept the sport off the U.S. airwaves for decades.  In this part, I explain why the entities that would stand the most to gain if the U.S. was turned into even just a minor “handball nation” failed for years to lend an effective helping hand.  (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

Why should Europeans even care if the U.S. isn’t any good at handball?

First off, it’s probably a good idea to dispel the notion held by some that it just doesn’t matter that the U.S. isn’t any good at Team Handball.  After all, Americans are plenty good at a lot of other sports.  At the London Olympics the U.S. won the most overall medals and the Men and Women both won the Gold in America’s preeminent Olympic team sport, basketball.   With all this winning it’s not hard to contemplate how many might conclude that the Olympics will do just fine and dandy if the Americans don’t qualify in Handball and go without medals in field hockey, indoor volleyball and other sports.   And, it’s hard not to argue that for a typical non-American fan that is a perfectly rational viewpoint.

It is, however, more difficult to understand how any handball executive, coach or player could come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if most of the U.S. is oblivious to their sport.  A vast, untapped affluent market of over 300 million people?  A sport tailor made for the American mindset and only about 300 fans?  Oh my goodness!   Imagine just a small portion of that 300 million watching the sport on TV and buying merchandise.  It’s a potential bonanza that could raise the profile and income of virtually anyone involved with the sport.   Why then, for so many years did European handball entities not see and try to exploit the opportunity here?

Historical reasons for the lack of European support

As often is the case it was a combination of several different reasons that contributed to this lack of European support.  In no particular order, here are those reasons and some rationale as to why they may or may not have been valid:

1) Basic indifference:  While executives should have recognized the opportunities that the U.S. presented, I suspect that many simply had the same basic mindset of the typical indifferent fan.  Throw in some “Anti-Americanism” and you further compound the problem.

2) A belief that the U.S. can or should fix it themselves:  It’s no secret that the U.S. is one of the wealthiest countries in the world.  Why should they get any help?  If the U.S. wants to promote handball then it should spend its own money to do so.  This contextual viewpoint, however, doesn’t appreciate the fact that the U.S. government does not provide any funding to its sports federations.   And whereas many nations have a fairly egalitarian distribution of funding to their federations the USOC can and has limited its support to handball.

3) The lack of professionalism:  For many years European handball was more amateur than professional.  Accordingly, there was less structure and less concern with growing and bringing in more revenue.  As the club leagues became more professional and revenues increased, however, executives became more inclined to explore new marketing opportunities.

4) Market share struggles at home:  While the IHF has often proudly proclaimed that handball is the 2nd most popular sport in the world this is simply not true.  The reality is that even in countries where the sport has a significant following there are a lot of resources that have had to be expended to simply maintain market share at home.  The thought of expending scarce resources in a foreign country probably seemed foolhardy in many instances.

5) Unwillingness to pay upfront for potential return on investment.  Even when Europeans saw the potential they were usually unwilling to invest the necessary funding required for promotion in the U.S.  While this is somewhat understandable in the context of all the other challenges listed above, there have been unsubstantiated reports of lost opportunities along the way; Rumors of networks like ESPN expressing interest in broadcasting, but the deals not being closed due to European insistence on more money for rights fees.

6) Not understanding American sports structures and marketplace.  While anyone who’s traveled and/or lived in both Europe and the U.S. will find a lot of similarities between the two, there are still some significant differences.   Just try explaining the importance/relevance of collegiate and high school sports to a European or conversely explaining the European club structure to an American.  Or the concept of rotating seasons (U.S.) and the September to June model that Europe uses for most of its sports.  On top of all this is a U.S. sports marketplace which has been evolving rapidly in terms of TV channels and promotion.  Heck, U.S. sports (Baseball and Ice Hockey) have had trouble keeping up; Pity, the poor Europeans attempting to navigate this minefield.

7) Ineffective American sales pitches.  Well, it’s quite simple for me to sit back and whine about how clueless Europeans have been.  But, it would be disingenuous to not fully acknowledge that each of the reasons listed above also has an American failure component to it.  I wasn’t around for any of the pitches that have been made through the years by the U.S. Federation and others, so it’s impossible for me apportion “blame.”  It could be that past Federation officials were master promoters that couldn’t convince obstinate Europeans to do more.  Or, it could be that they were bumbling fools that savvy Europeans quickly determined weren’t worth supporting.  I will speculate, however, that it was somewhere in between with the U.S. being good, but not great promoters and the Europeans being a little more resistant then they should have been.

So, that’s why the Europeans for years paid scant attention to the development of Team Handball in the U.S.  In Part 8 I will highlight why Europeans have awoken to the possibility of turning the U.S. into a handball nation, but still haven’t quite figured out how to awaken the sleeping giant, that is USA Team Handball.

No, these three apples can really be plucked easily.

As anyone who has followed the trials and tribulations of USA Team Handball through the years knows the sport has some huge challenges.  Rome wasn’t built in a day and it won’t be quick and easy to solve all of USA Team Handball’s challenges either.  New General Manager, Matt Van Houten, most likely already has a massively long checklist of things to do.  Some of these items may take years to fully address and it’s only a matter of time for a chorus to rise up and start complaining that nothing has changed.

Fortunately, however, there are a few items that should be relatively easy to fix.  Items that can be accomplished to show near term progress while the more difficult items are addressed.   Herewith, is the low hanging fruit:

1) FIX THE WEBPAGE

This hardly needs any explanation.  Not only has it been updated way too infrequently for over a year it is has been woefully lacking in substance and style.   Here are a couple of recent examples to highlight a few obvious problems.

• Don’t post a one paragraph link to a bland IHF story on the upcoming challenge tournament.  Two USA youth teams are going to the tournament, but you wouldn’t know about it from this post.  Why not a story about some of those athletes and their ongoing preparation?  Or better yet, strongly encourage those athletes to blog about and during the upcoming event.
• There was a major club tournament last weekend in Chicago.  Why not a photo and a story or at least a link to a site with all that information?    Heck, I’m guessing, if asked, Craig Rot would have done a nice little write-up of the whole event.
• Find better quality photos.  The blurred “IHF trophy” block letters and the photo of the new GM just don’t cut it.
• Finally, if a site has an audio interview with the new GM, wouldn’t it make sense to link to relevant content like that.

The need to fix the webpage simply cannot be understated as it is the all important, first impression for literally thousands of potential fans and players of the game.   Probably more than a few potential sponsors, as well.  USA Team Handball cannot afford to let folks conclude as this Orange County register reporter did during the Olympics, that the sport is not a priority and that our webpage looks like it’s hosted by Geocities.

2) Secure a sponsorship deal with U.S. TV networks currently broadcasting Team Handball

Yes, there are networks broadcasting the sport in the U.S.  In former USATH CEO Mike Cavanaugh and former USATH GM Steve Pastorino’s fantasy world they would have walked on to the job with this situation in hand.  Cavanaugh tried for years to secure a TV deal unsuccessfully and Pastorino finally was able to facilitate a deal with the MHz network.   The MHz deal is gone, but now two networks (beIN Sport and Univision Deportes) have chosen to broadcast the sport totally on their own.

As far as I can tell (multiple emails regarding this topic to the Interim GM and BoD President have not merited a response) there has been no dialogue between the Federation and these two networks on potential sponsorship of USA Team Handball.  The MHz Network had some sort of deal with the USA Federation, so I’d like to think these two entities would also jump at the chance of sponsoring the Federation in exchange for a little promotion on the USA website.

3) Post USA Team Handball’s financial data on the Federation website.

The Federation’s own by-laws state the following:

Section 17.5. Website.

USATH shall maintain a website for dissemination of information to its members. USATH shall post on its website its Bylaws.  Additionally, USATH shall post on its website its most recent annual financial statement and its most recent 990 Form filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Yet, the latest and greatest information is the 2009-2010 IRS Form 990 and a bad link to the 2011 BoD approved budget (it goes to a Form 990).    As we are approaching calendar year 2013 it’s more than high time to post more current information.   Not only is it a requirement, it’s the right thing for a transparent federation to do.

And to be even more transparent, some explanatory documents which highlight what key financial decisions are being made, and why in greater detail would be highly appreciated.   As an example of what not do, just try to decipher the notes regarding finances in the last two board meeting minutes (Feb 2012, May 2012).  These explanatory documents would not have to be a detailed prospectus, but they should give members real insight as to how much funding is going to support the various programs, be it club development, national team trips or organizing the Club National Championships.

So, three easy tasks that hopefully can be checked off the To Do List.  In the coming weeks, I’ll try to highlight some of the more important and challenging tasks that will require some heavy lifting.

Where’s the USA Team Handball fan? (Hint: There’s one in Southern Nevada)

In Part 4, I pointed out that one factor limiting sponsor funding was the reality that there are very few followers of Team Handball in the U.S. In Part 5 I try to explain why there are so few and why this is such a big reason for the sports lack of success.   (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

Well, pretty much every American who’s ever been involved with the sport knows that it’s a little known sport in this country, but how “little known” is it.  Over the years I’ve addressed this from a number of different angles.  For the benefit of new readers, however, I’ll rehash the basic issues.  First, though, I’ll try to quantify the problem a bit.

Just how lacking is this “lack of awareness?”

Despite some positive inroads and gains over the 25 years or so that I’ve followed the sport, the reality is that the footprint for Team Handball in the U.S. is extremely small.  How extremely small?  Well, without the benefit of a sophisticated survey it’s pretty tough to definitively qualify the sport’s popularity and awareness quotient.  Lacking that survey, I’ve put together some numbers based on personal experience, informed speculation and extrapolation.

Basic Awareness

I’ll define basic awareness as anyone who when asked could give a short simple explanation of the sport.  I suspect that if a poll were taken you would get probably around 5% of Americans to pass that basic test.  This may seem overly pessimistic to some American Team Handball followers because they’ve preached the gospel to virtually every friend and acquaintance in their life.  And as a sports fan you’re also likely hanging out with fellow sports fans who are more likely to pass the basic awareness test.  For instance, if you were to conduct a survey at a sports bar you could probably get a 25% response.  Ask the right expat community in New York, you might get 75%.  But, at a random chruch or a concert hall, you might be lucky to get 1 in a 100.  The timing of such a survey would also skew the results.  With the Olympics still fresh in more people’s minds, you could maybe bump up the average to 10% or more, but as the Olympics fades into memory the casual fan might forget the few minutes that he perused a couple of years ago while flipping through the channels on his TV.

A necessary diatribe on semantics

There are a number of reasons behind this low awareness quotient, but one of the biggest reasons is the existence of another, unrelated sport sharing the same name, “Handball.”  For the benefit of our readers, not living in the U.S, Canada, Ireland and Australia, this other Handball sport can best be described as “racquetball with your hands.”   And without question this “Handball” is more well known and popular in these countries.  While it’s easy to dismiss this as a minor semantics issue it has undoubtedly hurt the development and marketing of the sport in the U.S.  On a basic level it creates a remarkable amount of confusion and always requires a short diatribe to explain the sport.

In a broader context it hampers the “branding” of the sport in the consciousness of Americans.  If you consider that companies often spend millions of dollars figuring out what to name a product in the hopes that consumers will remember that product you get a sense that this little semantic problem is really a big one with no simple solution.

Well, theoretically there is a simple solution in that an entirely new name could be christened for the sport.  And this has been done halfway in the U.S. with the addition of the “Team” in Team Handball.  Unfortunately, this only half solved the problem as the name still causes more confusion then distinction.  And other names have been used.  In some parts of Canada the sport is referred to as E.T.H. European Team Handball as a further modifier and in Ireland it’s referred to as Olympic Handball.  I like the Irish name for it immediate conjures up the Olympic Games, but I’m not so sure as to whether the protective USOC would allow the use of the Olympic name.  A more radical solution would be to come up with an entirely new name like Goalball, but then that would create a whole host of new problems like the marketing that would be required.  Not to mention the resistance that would surely follow from traditionalists that can stand even the “Team” modifier.

If your sport isn’t on TV it doesn’t matter

Aside from the semantics problems there are a number of other issues related to so few people even knowing the sport exists.  As was touched upon previously, the dominance of basketball in the U.S. has made it tougher for a similar indoor sport to gain traction.  There is also a tremendous dearth when it comes to stories in the press, which is why it’s always a cause for minor celebration in the USA Team Handball community when some reporter writes a nice story on the sport in a major newspaper.  Without question, though, the lack of TV broadcasts is the biggest reason behind the sports low awareness quotient.

During the 2008 and 2012 Olympics I’ve seen the impact of TV first hand as the traffic to our website increases by leaps and bounds.  Here’s one anecdote for you.  During the MSNBC broadcast of a women’s match between Sweden and Denmark on the first day of the Olympics I watched our current unique visitors jump from 20 to 370 in the space of 15 minutes.  So that means that roughly 350 Americans sitting on their couch grabbed their iPad or their laptop and typed “Team Handball” into Google and clicked on the link for Team Handball News.  And those are just the individuals with that level of curiosity.  Thousands more undoubtedly checked out other websites or simply watched this “new” sport for the first time.  And this is on MSNBC, a network that normally shows news that is temporarily hijacked during the Olympics every four years.   We could argue about whether the basic awareness of the sport is 2%, 5% or 8%, but I don’t think anyone would argue that broadcasts like this caused this number to jump significant amounts

1 in a million:  The need for real fans and real awareness

But, increasing “basic awareness” is just the first battle to be fought.  If the sport is to truly grow and develop in this country the sport needs more real fans.  And this is where the title of this article comes into play.  The number of really devoted fans and athletes of the sport in the U.S. is an incredibly small number.   There are a few metrics and anecdotes that bear this out pretty starkly:  USA Team Handball membership has hovered around the 300-500 mark for decades.  The collegiate championship for several years has featured only 3 or 4 schools.   (And often West Point accounts for 2 of the teams.)  Tryouts/selections for national teams, particularly at younger levels sometimes involves simply finding any players.  Club championships in recent years have become more and more an Expat convention with native born Americans in the minority.

All of these anecdotes lead to my conclusion, that in the U.S. there are maybe around 300 real fans of the sport.  Somebody, who when asked, “Hey, what’s your favorite sport?” without hesitation replies Team Handball.  As the U.S. population is moving in on the 312 million mark, I’ll put the number at 312, so the devoted few can proudly claim they are 1 in a million.

The impact of this stark reality hardly needs explanation.  How can the U.S. expect to field quality teams with such a small talent pool to work with?  How can the U.S. attract big sponsorship deals when such a deal results in minimal exposure?  As I’ve pointed out in this series the U.S. has a lot of challenges, but this lack of awareness is probably as close as there is to a root problem.  If this problem is fixed then more funding and finding/developing better players will become far more easier.  Yes, step one is changing 1 in 1,000,000 to 1 in a 100,000 and then 1 in 10,000.

So that quantifies the extent of the problem in terms of awareness.  And, of course, it begs the question, why isn’t more being done to fix it.  In Part 6, I’ll further address the struggle and challenges involved with with getting the sport on TV more.

If only it were so easy to get substantial funding from these sources.

In part 3, I provided an overview of USA Team Handball’s funding since 1993 and some background as to why the USOC has decreased funding since the 96 Olympics.  Continuing with the theme of funding sources, in this part I look at why the sport hasn’t received much in terms of funding from sponsors and donors.   (Links to Part 1, Part 2)

Sponsors:  As the concept of a “sponsor” might mean different things to different people, I’ll define it as any company that contributes funding to USA Team Handball for the promotion of their product.  (Note:  This is significantly different from the concept of a donor (discussed later) for which there is nothing expected in kind.)

Companies with Handball Specific Products:  There are a number of products that are directly related to the sport of Team Handball.  The obvious products include balls, goals, nets, flooring, shoes and stickum.  Companies with make these products have an incentive to sponsor USA Team Handball since the use and promotion of these products by the Federation is pretty much guaranteed to reach almost everyone in the U.S. that would consider buying these products.  Over the years, USA Team Handball had had a number of sponsorship agreements with companies that make these products, but I don’t have access to the documentation which shows how substantial these agreements were.  In recent years, USA Team Handball did score a $50,000 sponsorship deal with SnapSports (a maker of floor courts), but I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if in most instances the primary benefit was simply equipment being provided for national team use.  (Side note:  Another item, worthy of a lengthy discussion are TV rights and that will be covered in the next installment.)

So, first the good news:  USA Team Handball can pitch to these potential advertisers its phenomenal market reach.  Seriously, if you advertise on USA Team Handball’s webpage, you are probably going to reach nearly 100% of the U.S. Handball market.  But, now the bad news:  The number behind that 100% is probably in the neighborhood of around 500 people.  If these companies do the math, and they generally have people that really do the math (if they want to stay in business), this means that the dollar figures behind these sponsorships isn’t going to currently amount to much.

Companies with Sports Related Products:  There are a number of sports related products not specific to Team Handball that also might find merit with a sponsorship relationship with USA Team Handball.  The most obvious item is team uniforms, but other items such as protective undergarments could come into play.  These sponsors, however, are also pretty aware of the relatively few numbers they will reach through USA Team Handball.  USA Team Handball has generally been pretty successful in finding a uniform sponsor, although it’s not clear how much funding these deals brought in.  If the U.S. could find more success on the court and qualify for the World Championships and convince a U.S. network to air a few national team matches the uniform contract would certainly increase in value.

Companies with Generic Products:  There’s nothing to prevent Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, or some other random company from joining the USA Team Handball sponsorship family.  Well, nothing other than the same argument:  They’d be paying to reach only a few potential customers.  Still, despite this USA Team Handball has had some success in this area in the past.   If companies with Team Handball specific products have taken a pass on advertising with USA Team Handball, you might wonder why on Earth some other random company would give it a go?

The answer generally falls into a couple of categories.  First, some companies want to get aligned with the Olympic movement in any way possible and USA Team Handball can provide an entrée for doing so.  The most striking example was a substantial sponsorship (reportedly around $1M) from the Weather Channel during the 96 Olympics timeframe.  I don’t the full specifics of how this came to pass, but I suspect that the Weather Channel, based in Atlanta, wanted to join the Olympic family and was either coaxed or steered in USA Team Handball’s direction.   I’ll never forget the bizarre juxtaposition of seeing USA Team Handball promotional ads being aired in between weather forecasts and contemplating just how many people watching even knew what they were seeing.  Unfortunately, enticing these companies usually requires being in the Olympics which has proven problematic in recent years.

The second category generally requires someone in the company having an affinity to Team Handball.  How else to explain USA Team Handball’s current sponsorship from Grundfos, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of water pumps?  This Danish company clearly has an affinity to the sport because the likelihood of a USA Team Handball follower also having a need of a water pump is probably pretty small.  In many respects, the distinction between this sort of sponsor and a straight up donor is pretty negligible.

Donors:  If a sponsor provides money with the intent of promoting their product, a donor is someone or some company providing money with no real expectation of profit or promotion.  Donors support a charity, a movement, or a sports federation because they believe in the cause.   I don’t know how much money has been donated over the years, but I suspect that with the exception of Dieter Esch’s fairly recent generosity it hasn’t amounted to a whole lot.

Much like a presidential campaign there’s two ways to accumulate significant funding from donations.  You can either get a few people to contribute a lot or you can get a lot of people to contribute a little.

The millionaire donor:  During the Olympics, sports columnist Jack McCallum whimsically suggested that some altruistic millionaire should take it upon himself to fund USA Team Handball.

Not the first time somebody has come up with that idea as it is the simple solution to the big funding problem.  It seems somewhat silly, but it is at least conceivable.  After all, a lot of millionaires have purchased sports franchises and then bought players to win regardless of how much it costs their bottom line. The team becomes essentially a toy for them in the big scheme of things.  And even outside of professional sports, Paul Allen of Microsoft fame and T Boone Pickens have respectively, turned the Oregon and Oklahoma State NCAA Football teams into top programs.

From that perspective why not spend money turning around an Olympic sport?  The funny thing is, is this is sort of what happened to USA Team Handball on a smaller scale when Dieter Esch bankrolled the Federation from 2008-2010.  I say, “sort of” because Mr. Esch’s generosity had its limits, somewhere perhaps between $500K and $1M.  While his generosity was substantial, we would need Mark Cuban dollars for a full and complete turnaround.  And while I wouldn’t count on this happening, if there ever is someone with idle cash and a love for the sport, I sure hope USA Team Handball is ready to pounce with a pitch that will close the deal.

In the mean time, USA Team Handball could still make inroads with more donors being willing to contribute substantial, but still sizable donations.  Indeed this was the strategy behind the $50K cost for a Board of Director’s seat that Mr. Esch implemented.  And this was how Grundfos was brought into the fold.  Problem is, though, that more companies and businesses did not follow suit.  This could have been a salesmanship problem, but perhaps it’s more of a product problem.

Salesmanship Problem or a Product Problem?

One of the things that I’ve found amusing in online forums or in postgame discussions at the bar are critical comments directed at USA Team Handball for not raising more funds and/or being content to live off the USOC.  As if incompetence and laziness were the only things keeping us from going out in to the backyard to pick corporate checks off the fundraising tree.

I don’t have full insight into how much effort USA Team Handball put into fundraising over the years, but it clearly appears to have been a priority of the last GM and Board President.  Unfortunately, while they made good progress in establishing relationships with several European entities significant funding streams didn’t materialize.  Maybe they were simply bad salesmen, but I would assess their lack of success more to the bitter truth that there is little present value with the product of USA Team Handball.

It’s true that there are some incredible salesmen that can seemingly sale anything to anyone.   But in the midst of a struggling world economy even the Billy Mays of the world are going to come up short if the product doesn’t cut it.

So, given this currently reality how can we convince potential donors and sponsors to step forward and provide more funding to USA Team Handball?  Two answers:

1) Sell the future.  While the present value of USA Team Handball is paltry, the potential future value is exceedingly bright.  A nation of 308 Million people and only around 500 dedicated followers?  A sport tailor made for Americans?  For a long time sponsors and donors couldn’t see that potential future or thought it was a pipedream, but a number of developments have occurred in recent years to start turning some heads.  (To be discussed in the next installment)

In order to sell that future, however, USA Team Handball is going to have to convince the sponsors, donor and international partners that a clear plan is in place to make that future happen.

2) Improve the current product.  Of course, this is obvious, but it’s important to note that is not necessarily fully aligned with National Team performance.  No, the goal here is to improve the product from the viewpoint of potential sponsors and donors.  This means a number of things, but more than anything it means turning 500 dedicated followers into 5,000 and then 50,000 and then more.

So that wraps up the discussion on sponsor and donors.  In part 5, I further elaborate on some of the reasons the sport of handball is so little known in the U.S.  

Since the 96 Olympics the bottom line for USA Team Handball has been trending down.

In Part 1, I provided some top level analysis as to why our current national teams didn’t qualify for the London Olympics- we’re simply not very good.  In Part 2, I addressed the challenges USA Team Handball has had in finding and developing athletes.  In Part 3, I tackle the current lack of funding, some potential sources of additional revenue and why the U.S. has struggled to raise more funds.

It doesn’t take long for anyone observing the state of Team Handball in the U.S. to come up with a number of potential solutions as to how things could be turned around.  Very few of those solutions, however, come free and even the lowest cost options require some level of funding to implement.  It can be amusing to hear or read these would be solutions and then do some back of the envelope cost analysis to quickly determine that  the first year of implementation alone would bust the entire U.S. budget for the last decade.

Just how lacking is this “Lack of Funding?”

So, just how cash strapped is USA Team Handball?  I don’t have all the financial details, but the U.S. Government’s tax reporting requirements do provide a pretty good window of the trend that have occurred in the past two decades.  Using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990s that are available through different online resources, I was able to do some forensic analysis.   For each year, the first number is the amount listed on USA Team Handball’s Form 990s in regards to “gifts, grants and contributions received.”  The second number is the contribution amount listed in U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) Form 990s as being granted to USATH.

Year       Total Contributions         USOC Grant
1993       $841,615
1994       $1,396,152
1995       $1,204,365
1996       $1,383,813
1997       $867,116
1998       $585,000
1999       $563,152
2000       $741,322
2001       $652,364              $510,000
2002       $614,930              $379,000
2003       $547,091              $487,561
2004       $458,621              $354,237
2005       <<N/A>>             $281,620
2006       <<N/A>>             $3,184
2007       <<N/A>>             $500
2008       $489,150              $0
2009       $974,612              $238,268
2010       <<N/A>>             $335,552
2011       <<N/A>>              $283,202

First, a few notes regarding the data above:

– I couldn’t find USOC Form 990s prior to the year 2000.
– From 2006-2008 there was essentially no USA Team Handball Federation due to the USOC’s decertification of the Federation.  During that time period, however, the USOC took over many of the responsibilities of the Federation.  It would be interesting to see what it cost the USOC to run Team Handball during that period, but those numbers aren’t available.
– The USOC fiscal year is the same as the Calendar year while USA Team Handball’s Fiscal Year is from 1 July to 30 June.  In other words 2009 data is actually from 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010.
– Reportedly, there was a number of accounting problems with USA Team Handball’s 2010 Form 990 and I think that is why it hasn’t been filed yet.
– There are several other items that I could have listed in the table to include total revenue and total expenses.  With few exceptions, however, total revenue and expenses track very closely to the total contribution number.  In other words, almost all of USA Team Handball’s revenue has been in the form of grants and USA Team Handball expenses have matched that revenue.  (Although, based on reports of debt problems this is probably not true for the 2010-2011 timeframe.)
– The Form 990 does not require the filing organization to fully break out where the contributions come from and for what amount.  This is why I include the USOC reporting of grants to Team Handball.  Additionally, it appears that older versions of the form don’t clearly delineate between grant and sponsorship funding.

While there are a lot of limitations with this data, it does provide a pretty good indication of the downward trend in funding.  Certainly from the high water mark (around the 96 Olympics) to the demise of the Federation in 2006 there’s a significant drop in funding.  And not surprisingly, there was a corresponding drop in performance on the court with the U.S. not coming anywhere close to qualifying for the 2000 and 2004 Olympics.  Aside from the drop in national team performance the lack of funding undoubtedly exacerbated USA Team Handball’s management/leadership problems leading to the Federation’s eventual decertification by the USOC.

With the establishment of the new Federation in 2008 there was an uptick in funding, but this uptick was mostly attributable to the generosity of Dieter Esch.  USOC funding from 2009 to 2011 has ranged from $238K to $335K, still far below reported figures from 2000-2004 and surely below grants provided during the 1996 Olympics timeframe.  With Dieter Esch deciding to turn off the spigot in 2010, USA Team Handball is reportedly back to a budget in the $300-500K range.

It can be debated as to just how much USA Team Handball needs in terms of funding to field competitive teams, but few would argue that $300-500K is sufficient.  Certainly, if $1.3M budgets were required in the 1996 timeframe to be “respectable” in Atlanta, then probably at least that much (adjusted for inflation) is needed today.  And not to mention, there’s a whole lot more than just national team budgets to consider.  How do you also pay for development and the interests of the membership at large.  And marketing, staff salaries, etc, etc.  Really, to do things right you probably need more like $5M.

So, Where’s the “Mo Money” Going to Come from?

So, if it’s so obvious you need more money, why you just craft a plan and go get it.  Right?  If only, it was so easy.  On the plus side, it is fairly obvious what the potential sources of additional revenue are, it’s just that convincing those sources to actually cough up the bucks is easier said than done.  What follows is a list of the potential sources, why they haven’t contributed as much as maybe they should and some top level assessment as to what it’s going to take for them to change their minds.

USOC:  For decades the USOC has been the main funding source for USA Team Handball.  This funding has varied over the years at times probably pushing the $1M mark at the high end and bottoming out to zero at the low end.  (It would be interesting to see more definitive financial data going back to the 1970s and adjusted for inflation, but that information is not readily available.)   In more recent years it has been around $300K.  So what happened?   Why the dramatic decrease in funding support?

The simple answer is that since the 96 Olympics the USOC has increasingly decided to base their funding decisions on what a sport’s chances for getting a medal are.  With the U.S. not being coming close to a medal in 96 and clearly no chance of medalling on the horizon it’s easy to see how Team Handball is going to come up short when competing against the likes of Swimming and Gymnastices.  Even worse as a team sport the costs of fielding a competitive team are pretty substantial and the return on investment can only be one medal in each gender.  The bitter reality is that no matter how you slice and dice it, if you’re trying to maximize medals for the least cost, investing in Team Handball is a fool’s errand.

Might the USOC, however, rethink its current medal emphasis?  I can think of a number of other factors that should be considered when the USOC makes these decisions.  Those factors include Federation need, potential TV audience and health/fitness for the nation as a whole.  In each of those areas USA Team Handball scores pretty high.  “Need” certainly doesn’t need to be explained.  As witnessed by the buzz from the recent Olympics it should be even clearer to USOC reps that the sport is tailor made for TV.  I’m obviously biased, but I don’t think it should be lost on anyone that the dynamics of attractive Team Handball match is inherently more entertaining than watching an arrow hit a target or boat crews rowing their oars back and forth.  Finally, with obesity becoming an increasing health concern the prospect of thousands of youths running up and down the court is a selling point that the USOC will/should at least listen to.

While these are factors that the USOC appears to consider, the goal is still clearly gold, silver or bronze.  And as long as that’s the case the best USA Team Handball can probably hope for is probably around $500K/year, an amount which is more in line with the funding levels of some of the other minor Olympic sports.

But the USOC isn’t the only game in town, in Part 4 I’ll review why funding has also been lacking from international entities, sponsors and other sources of potential revenue.

Targeted recruiting for national teams or grass roots development? Or Both? And why is it so hard?

In Part 1, I provided some top level analysis as to why our current national teams didn’t qualify for the London Olympics.   This analysis simply looked at our current team and compared that team to former U.S. Olympic teams and our current Pan American competition.  That analysis highlighted that our current teams are lacking in the following areas: 1) Raw athletic talent, 2) Conditioning, 3) Individual technique/skills, 4) Team cohesion/experience, 5) Coaching strategy/preparation.  In this second part I start to look at the underlying reasons for failure.

The Underlying Reasons:   A complicated web they weave.

I’ve been asked a number of times over the years, just why the U.S. isn’t any good in Team Handball.  I usually reply with “How much time do you have and where should I start?”  As I started to map out the reasons on paper in a systematic way it became even more clear to me just how complicated it is as all of the reasons are interlocking in multiple ways so there is no clear root cause to failure.  In short, there is no straight line cause and effect like the old “For want of a nail” proverb by which if we just solve this one thing we’ll become a great handball nation.  Perhaps, some reasons like the lack of funding or lack of marketing exposure come close, but there is no “silver bullet” guaranteed to solve all the problems.

So, with that little diatribe in mind I would like to highlight 4 major underlying reasons worth further discussion.  Those 4 reasons are:

1) A lack of good handball athletes
2) A lack of marketing/awareness
3) A lack of funding
4) Ineffective leadership/management

Underlying Reason #1:  A lack of good handball athletes

Perhaps the most obvious shortcoming to the U.S. National teams relates to a distinct lack of athlete with both the raw talent and technical skills to compete at higher levels.  There are two basic solutions or paths to address this problem:

1) Targeted Recruitment: You can recruit some good raw athletic talent and have a dedicated and intensive training program to build up their technical skills
2) Grass Roots:  You can develop broad based grass roots programs to increase the number of players in this country and out of those greater numbers some good athletes with strong technical skills will emerge.

Over the years the U.S. has tried both approaches to varying degrees of success.  In a series of articles I wrote 3 years ago, “A Framework for Creating USA National Team Success” Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, I provided an in depth review of some of the problems with each strategy and proposed a hybrid model for implementation.  Here is a somewhat shortened version of that analysis.

Targeted Recruitment:  The obvious solution?

With the Olympics going on various media observers have been watching the Handball matches and have been zeroing in on the Target Recruitment strategy.  All we need is NBA D-League players or mediocre NCAA talent from the Big Sky conference and train them up a little.  Even USA Team Handball is in the act taking the more modest approach of 1 (all we need is just 1) athlete from each NCAA conference.

It’s easy to see why so many people immediately come up with this strategy as one only has to watch the teams currently playing in London and assess that there are indeed thousands, if not tens of thousands of athletes in the U.S. with the raw athletic talent necessary to compete.  But, it’s just not that simple as there are a number of further underlying reasons:

1) Recruitment of the great raw talent athlete is only feasible when those athletes run out of other options:  Many observers fully realize this and that is why the more credible back of the napkin analysis focuses on athletes that aren’t going to make the big time.  Problem is you need to convince those athletes that they aren’t going to be the next D-Leaguer that isn’t going to make the NBA.

2) More athletes have more “other” options:  Not too many years ago the options for former NCAA athletes were pretty limited making an Olympic handball career an interesting possibility.  This is not as true anymore, particularly for basketball athletes who have a lot more options in Europe.  This article highlights how things have change over the years.

3) Older players are more likely to have “life issues” emerge:  Most great raw talent athletes at least having the option of playing their chosen sport in college.  This means the youngest athletes will be in 22-23 age range.  Certainly from a physicality standpoint this age is not a tremendous problem, but with each passing year athletes will inevitably have “life issues” play a greater and greater role in their overall psyche.  The possibility of marriage, needing to start a career or just waking up some morning and deciding that this training isn’t any fun anymore will come into play.

4) The Olympic carrot is less of a tangible reward:  In the past a USA Team Handball recruiter could confidently wave the Olympic carrot in front of a would be player.  Certainly at the 84 and 96 Olympics there was automatic qualification.  The competition in the Pan American region, however, is now much stiffer and some athletes will be less enticed when they realize that participating in the Olympics is far from a guarantee.

5) Lack of funding:  And right now the USA Federation has nowhere near the funding necessary to establish a credible training program for these would be recruits.  The programs in the 80s and 90s provided room and board, overseas travel opportunities and a small stipend.  With the other reasons outlined above even that model might not be sufficient enough to recruit the players needed.

Grass Roots:  Too hard and it takes too long?

While it’s not the solution du jour, Grass Roots strategies have garnered more weight at other times.  All we have to do is copy what soccer has done (or lacrosse, or rugby, or ultimate Frisbee) and then the sport will be popular in this country.  It’s not so simple and in this post I explained why.

Perhaps the biggest proponents to this strategy are the many expats who remember how they learned the sport at younger ages in their home country.  If we could do it in Elbonia then we can do it in the USA.   Grass Roots takes time, but it’s clearly the way to go if we want to have sustained success.  If you have thousands and thousands playing the sport, you will have great players that bubble up to the top and they will be doing so at age 18, not age 25.  But it’s not easy to develop these broad based programs.  Here are some of the reasons why.

1) Starting up a team sport from scratch isn’t easy:  Team Handball is a team game and you need a lot of players in order to have a good training environment.  We can probably quibble about just exactly how many are needed, but at least 10 is probably a good number.   Then, of course, you have to add the challenge of convincing people who’ve never played a sport before to suddenly decide to devote time and money to it.  The internet and Olympic telecast make such recruiting easier, but as anybody who’s ever started a club knows this is painstaking, unglamorous work.

2) Gym space is needed:  Finding a gym to play in can be a challenge as many in the U.S. were built for smaller basketball courts.  And then all those basketball leagues have to be contended with.  The cost of gym rental can be a crippling blow to new clubs which lack the numbers to share the costs.

3) The tyranny of distance:  The U.S. is a big country.  Even if a good club program is started in one particular city, that club often has to travel considerable distance to play another club.  This means that for real grass roots efforts to succeed that one club in a city often isn’t enough.  This is why to a certain extent that there is a little bit more concentration and development on the East Coast where the population has a bit more density.

4) The dominance of basketball: Team Handball is its own game and has similarities with a number of sports.  Still, it should be obvious that there is a great deal of similarity between the two games.  Not every good basketball player could be a good team handball player (and vice-versa), but there is a massive number of players that could choose either.  Basketball was invented in the U.S. and it’s our national indoor sport.  That’s not going to ever change and those would be athletes at younger ages are almost always going to select hoops over handball.

5) The physicality of team handball:  Team Handball can be a rough sport to play and it’s probably better suited for athletes in their teens.  Accordingly, it’s at a handicap compared to other sports like soccer where there is less injury, or at least the perception of less injury.

6) The pressure to succeed now: It’s a given that Grass Roots programs will not lead to immediate success.  In fact, you could argue that it will take at least 10 years to see any success translated to our national teams.  Meanwhile the USOC, a primary funding source for USA Team Handball, requests a yearly High Performance Plan which is supposed to outline how Team USA is going to win medals when the reality is that even qualifying at this point would be a tremendous success.  This pressure has always existed, so it’s not surprising that funding choices have often been made towards supporting National Teams rather than Grass Roots efforts.  And then when those National Teams have only moderate success (if even that) the Grass Roots proponents out in the sticks have complained, if only you had given me the resources I need, I would have developed several athletes that could make your national teams.

7) Lack of funding:  But, again the reality is that even if USA Team Handball zeroed out all funding for USA National Teams there still wouldn’t be enough seed money to support Grass Roots programs on the scale that is necessary.  Sure, it could be argued that these programs should be self-sufficient, but with the challenges outlined above assistance is needed to better enable success.

The Answer?

When you start to add up the underlying reasons it becomes fairly clear that both strategies have a lot of hurdles standing in the way of success.   As I noted in my framework series there are elements of both models that have merits, so that’s why I think some sort of a hybrid approach stand the best chance of success.  And I say best chance, because there are some other underlying reasons that would have to be resolved before any plan to field better teams has a good chance at success.  Those other areas include a lack of funding, a lack of exposure/marketing,  and yes, a history of ineffective leadership/managemen.  In Part 3, I first address the historical lack of funding.