If you’ve checked out the USA Team Handball website lately, www.usateamhandball.org you’ve undoubtedly noticed more activity of late. After a slow start the new federation is doing a much better job in terms in getting the word out and reporting on handball events in the U.S. I won’t repeat in detail all the news they’ve reported on in the past few weeks, but it includes several stories on new staff hires, the Chicago tournament and the Women’s team plans to participate in the Division 1 Pan American Team Handball Federation (PATHF) tournament in Mexico in November.

The best product to date was the recent first issue of the USA Team Handball Newsletter. The 6 page full color newsletter includes news, photos and a handball tips section. The newsletter can be viewed online at http://usateamhandball.org/tracker/?e=dchandball%40yahoo.com&u=573&s=3&t=url&d=http%3A%2F%2Fusateamhandball.org.ismmedia.com%2FISM3%2Fstd-content/repos/Top/usateamhandballnews1.pdf or you can sign up for email delivery at http://usateamhandball.org/registration/.

The terms “professional athlete” or “professional contract” appear from time to time on this website as well as national federation sites. To the uninitiated, particularly young Americans, being a professional athlete might conjure an image of playing in packed arenas with adoring fans and lucrative contracts. One needs, however, to take a closer look at the definition of professional before jumping to that conclusion.

According to Merriam-Webster a professional is defined as someone who “Participates for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs.”

And if you break down this definition, you’ll see that “gain or livelihood” is not quantified. In other words, if someone pays you 1 dollar or buys you lunch to play Handball for them, then by definition you are a professional Handball athlete. In fact, using this definition, almost everyone who has ever played for the USA National team was a professional. Albeit a poorly paid one, but a professional. The same is true, as well, for the British Handball athletes currently training in Denmark. For that matter, every collegiate athlete on scholarship in the U.S. is a professional using the strict definition. Their compensation for playing is the tuition and the room/board provided by the scholarship. The NCAA may claim amateur status, but for the major collegiate sports, in particular, the athletes are really amateur in name only.

A “professional contract” changes the definition and context somewhat. With a contract, a player is clearly getting monetary compensation from a private club and there is no collegiate or national team aspect so the allusion of amateur status is gone entirely. But again being a professional is simply a matter of some compensation being provided, whether it be $1 or $1,000,000. Or in an American context, a minor league class A and a Major League Baseball player are both “professionals” they just have dramatically different salaries.

The same is also true in European Handball Leagues, in that there is different compensation for different levels. But signing a contract for a single A baseball team and a low level handball club are two dramatically different things. Primarily, this is because European sports are not organized differently. First off, the overall structure is more graduated with more divisions (sometimes as many as 7 levels) between the lowest amateur teams and the highest professional teams. Secondly, the European norm is to provide compensation to players at a much lower level of play than one could expect with an American club.

This is one of the reasons why you’ll see many former NCAA basketball players with no real prospect of ever playing in the NBA playing at all levels in Europe. Some are drawing great salaries at the higher levels, decent salaries at middle levels and next to nothing at the lowest levels. And Handball in Europe doesn’t have the cachet that Basketball does, so those salaries/compensation would be even lower by comparison.

I’ve tried to extrapolate the salaries in Europe https://teamhandballnews.com/news333.html
before, but it’s a lot of guesswork due to the lack of information provided. My educated guess is that you don’t have to go very far down in the league structures in the various nations to see levels of compensation drop significantly below the median income for the nation in question. And a little farther down the pecking order, calling yourself a professional athlete, is a real stretch from an American point of view.

But, the point of this diatribe was not to belittle the fact that someone has or is playing professionally in Europe. The fact that some club values a player enough to compensate them in some fashion is a significant statement of that player’s capabilities. The point that I wanted to make instead is that being a professional athlete in Europe is not the same as being a professional athlete in the U.S. Just something to take into context when somebody says they were a professional handball player in the Elbonian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbonia League for 8 years.

HSV Hamburg demolished Red Star Belgrade, 38-22 on Wednesday, but if you were to have walked into the gym in Belgrade at any point during the match, you probably would have thought it was a tight contest. Why? The crowd of 2,200 was singing and chanting non-stop throughout the match.

Hey, normally a coach will tell his team let’s take control of the game early and take the crowd out of the contest. I guess in Belgrade you can take control of the game, but you can never take control of the fans.

EHF Article on Match: http://www.eurohandball.com/article/11842
EHF match video: (Match was played on October 15th): http://www.ehftv.com/

The French Coupe de la Ligue final four will be staged at the American Airlines Arena in Miami from 10-12 April. Outside of the Olympics in 1984 and 1996 this is without question the biggest Handball event to ever take place in the United States. With the exception of the 1997 Men’s World Championships in Japan, it is probably the biggest event ever to take place in a country without a significant Handball fan base. Without question it is the biggest professional club event to take place outside of a club’s home country. I guess what I’m saying with all this hyperbole is that this tournament is a really big deal and the French League and Cristian Zaharia should be commended for the vision and follow through to make it a reality.

But looming on the horizon for American handball fans could be some tough financial choices next spring. Namely, fans will have to ask themselves how many plane tickets and hotel stays can I afford to support my handball hobby? Or in simpler terms, many will have to choose between attending the National Championship Tournament or attending the first professional handball matches every played on U.S. soil. Of course, individuals could choose to do both, but with the stock market dropping like a rock and Miami being on the far Southeastern tip of the USA the cost of doing so will likely be prohibitive for many.

But, there is a simple solution to this dilemma. Namely, the National Championships should be placed in Miami the same weekend. Which Championship though? Collegiate or Club you ask? I say both and heck, why not throw in an invitation for Canadian Clubs to come down south while we’re at it. Let’s not stop there, get the Caribbean nations there and especially the French outposts of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Yes, why don’t we turn 8-12 April, 2009 into the biggest handball festival North America has ever seen.

OK, maybe the festival is asking too much. The USA Federation has also already put a marker out for the club championships to take place on a different weekend (1-3 May). But let’s at least look at putting the collegiate nationals there the same weekend. And let’s also consider staging an elite club tournament the same weekend as a National Championship tuneup. Perhaps, 4 top USA Clubs, 2 Canadian Clubs, and the Guadeloupe and Martinique club champions. Maybe we could have a Canada-USA friendly and play it also at the American Airlines Arena.

Bottom Line: Something should be done to supplement the French Club Final Four—It just makes too much sense.