The EHF Champions League website recently published an interview http://www.ehfcl.com/men/2007-08/article/11388/Interwetten:+passionate+support+for+the+CL on their website with the CEO of one of their advertising partners. What’s notable, is that the marketing partner is an internet gambling company, Interwetten www.interwetten.com

Here’s my favorite exchange from the short interview:

“Eurohandball.com: You have seen an exciting game in Kiel, probably also exciting for those betting on it.

Thomas Daubek: It’s a men’s world: a fair, fast, technically very high level game, maybe the best match I have ever seen. I’m happy that I had a chance to watch it.

When the atmosphere gets through on TV to the people watching from their homes, they are ready to place their bets on it. This is an important circle: when the sports are high quality, there are many people betting on it. When many bet on it, there will be a financial basis to reinvest into it from our side, which we are willing to do. “

As an American it’s laughable to even conceptualize the NBA or the NFL having such a sponsor and posting an interview exchange like that on their official website. The major professional leagues are so frightened of gambling that they barely will even acknowledge the huge impact that betting has had on sport popularity. Of course, this fear is legitimate as scandals like the Black Sox in 1918 on college basketball in the 1950’s were devastating to those sports popularity.

The big news last year was that the NBA played the All-Star game in Vegas as a trial balloon to see if Vegas might be ready for an NBA franchise. Of course, the condition for a franchise is reportedly that Vegas will have to agree not to book NBA games. Contrast that to the CEO’s comments.

I’ll have to say, however, that I’ve evolved since I first wrote on this topic: http://teamhandball.blogspot.com/2005/12/ihf-marketing-policy-on-gambling-open.html Maybe, if you see enough games with advertisements in plain view your American puritan blood is thinned.

Maybe it is better to actually fully embrace gambling rather than ignore it entirely. Heck, if they want to help fund the sport, why not? The only caveat I would have, however, is that there need to be some very clear rules and penalties for players, coaches and officials regarding their involvement with gambling. I would think life time banishment would be the minimum penalty. It would be interesting to know whether such rules exist in the IHF, EHF and National Regulations. As the recent Asian Championship match between Kuwait and Iran shows the possibility for match manipulation is very real.

Hopefully, such a betting scandal never occurs, but it wouldn’t hurt to be ready to respond forcefully when it does. Or even better, make clear to everyone right now that the penalties are so severe that they outweigh any potential gains.

Well there’s nothing like people losing money to stir up strong emotions. If you’ve been following the controversy related to the ISAE and Bern Wulffen you’ll see that it’s received a lot of interest from our readers. And, unfortunately some of those readers have gotten a little bit too personal in their comments or have decided to use our site for their own agendas. As I’ve got a full time job and don’t have the time and/or inclination to monitor comments regularly something has got to give.

So here’s the deal. I’m turning off the comments on news articles that I think could result in a lot of commentary that might need policing. Readers wishing to rant, however, still have a couple of options:

1) Start your own handball website or blog
2) Post in the forum section on Team Handball News. (Link is at the top of the page)

The 1st option will allow you to spout off without monitoring. The 2nd option will be monitored, but, as far as I’m concerned, readers will have more leeway as to what they write there. Just keep it relatively clean.

As for the comments that were posted, I’ve moved them to the forum. Feel free to continue the discussion there.

President Bush made a short stop in Croatia on his recent European trip and had the chance to meet and chat with Croatian Handball Coach, Lino Cervar during a state dinner. Cervar, who was until recently also a member of the Croatian Parliament, said that the dinner was a thrill and the Bush wished him luck in Beijing this summer.

Article on Bush meeting Cervar: http://www.javno.com/en/sports/clanak.php?id=137951

What was not said in the article, is that upon learning that Coach Cervar was coach of the Olympic Handball Team, President Bush in all likelihood immediately thought of the 4 wall handball sport played in the USA. He probably was even surprised to learn that it was an Olympic sport and I’ll further speculate that he thought to himself, “Handball in the Olympics? Squash is more deserving than handball.” It’s a good thing he didn’t get into a discussion on how do you get 7 guys on a handball court.

Of course, I could be wrong. President Bush, might have made small talking about the Champions League matches coming up and whether Ivano Balic would play for Zagreb next year. I doubt it though. I would guess that there’s probably about a 5% chance that Bush is aware that there are two handball games. He does know his American sports, but having done little travel outside the US it’s unlikely he’s ever seen a match. And this is not Republican bashing, I would give Obama about a 5% chance as well. As an avid sports fan, it’s possible on a trip to Europe he might have stumbled on the sport while channel surfing at a hotel. As far as Hilary Clinton goes, the odds are less than 1 in a 100 that she is familiar with the sport. My guess is that the most prominent politician in the USA that is familiar with the sport is California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who surely was exposed to the sport while growing up in Austria.

But while American politicians are clueless about Handball, that’s to be expected. The all time handball political faux pas has to go former French President Jacques Chirac. In 1995 the President honored the French National Team for the World Championship title they had won in Iceland. Introduced to France's iconic star with an American sounding name, Jackson Richardson, a very confused President Chirac replied, “Welcome to France” in [i][b]English[/b][/i].

Handball in America FAQ: https://teamhandballnews.com/page20.html

Well, I got several emails from readers who didn’t realize that my recent post on the IHF, EHF and National Handball Leagues forming a TV partnership was an April Fools Day joke. My apologies to those that thought it was a real news item, logged on to handball.tv and pulled out their credit cards. This isn’t our first April Fool’s article as last year we had Stefan Kretzschmar joining David Beckham in LA. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.291

I guess the good news is that the possibility of such a partnership forming to bring Handball to more TV and computer screens world-wide no longer seems so outrageous. Certainly the technology is there, even if the willpower and audience isn’t there yet. Things are, in fact, trending in the right direction. Recently, handball fans had the opportunity to watch the IHF sponsored Women’s Olympic Qualification matches for free via web streaming. The EHF has been making Champions League matches available on their website as well with 2 more free matches scheduled for Sunday. And if you want to shell out a few dollars or Euros, you can also watch German Bundesliga matches with near TV picture quality. Just last night I watched Hamburg and Kiel in the German Cup Final. It was a great game and the viewer experience, thanks to the higher bit rate is much better than the IHF and EHF offerings. And while I’m looking forward to seeing those same 2 teams take on Ciudad Real and Barcelona on Sunday, I can’t help but think about how awesome it would be if I could watch those matches at the HBL.TV bit rate. Add good English language commentary and on demand (watch any time) to the package and I would have no problem paying for that. And I don’t think that I’d be alone.

If the IHF, EHF, and the National Leagues were to set aside their differences and combine forces for one web TV package they surely would save money by pooling their resources. On top of that they would better realize the inherent synergy and cross marketing opportunities which might not seem so obvious. Case in point, are the National Team competitions which seem at odds with the club system. While the National Team competitions do disrupt the club schedule and add to player fatigue they also provide a bigger stage and undoubtedly draw in viewers not familiar with the club leagues. Some of these new viewers could then be easily steered into watching the club matches, especially if those matches were to be hosted on the same platform.

Of course, each of these entities can continue to develop their products in an uncoordinated fashion. But, if handball ever wants to be more than a niche sport, a coordinated effort is probably needed to make real inroads into new markets. Such a combined effort might even have a chance in getting Handball on a traditional TV outlet in the United States and other countries. It won’t be easy. Heck, if it was easy it would have happened years ago. Getting a toehold in the US market will cost money upfront, but sharing that investment cost together might make it more palatable. And the long term gain could be enormous. Alternatively, the Handball World can sit idly by while the NBA gets their own network on TV in Europe and China. And other sports like Rugby, Baseball and American Football also make inroads into new markets. Did you know for instance that the NBA has a staff of 50 working full time in China promoting basketball there. Do the IHF, EHF, HBL and Liga Asobal have even one employee doing the same for Handball on a part time basis?

I don’t want, however, to sit by and just complain. That’s why we’ll soon be adding a new page to our site devoted to getting Handball on TV in the USA and other non-traditional markets. The new page will keep viewers up to date on offerings in their market and will contain information on networks and delivery platforms that might carry Handball matches in the future. The goal will be to organize and mobilize Handball fans to support and encourage any TV network that is considering the possibility of broadcasting matches. While it might seem we are a bunch of Don Quixote’s chasing windmills I’ll point out that a similar organization, the Australian Football Association of North America (AFANA) www.afana.com was instrumental in getting that even lower profile sport on TV in the USA. Yes, I do see a Quixote in my future, but it’s an arena in Ciudad Real and I’m watching a match there on a High Def TV.

Here are a few scores for you to consider:

2006 England – Faroe Islands 8 -54
2008 Great Britain – Faroe Islands 19-6

March 28, 2008 Japan – Romania 21 – 44
March 29, 2008 Japan – Poland 29-27

One of the most appealing aspects about sports is that it’s one of the few things in life where there is no real question or argument about where you stand. All you have to do is look at the scoreboard. It doesn’t usually lie and there’s no escaping that fact. That’s one of the reasons there are so many coaches that are fired and so many players that lose their contract. If you want to know where your nation stands in the Handball World all you have to do is look at how many times you win or lose. And further you can look at the final score and see how far you are behind.

That’s why these scores tell a pretty significant story.

First, look at the England/Great Britain vs. Faroe Island scores. Two years ago England got waxed by 46 goals. Now with a new focused program Great Britain has erased the memory of that defeat with a 3 goal victory. Sure, those aren’t exactly the same teams and the Faroe Islands are not a world power, but anytime you can turn things around 49 goals, you are making progress.

The Japanese result is also significant for a couple of reasons. First off, Japan showed tremendous resilience in their ability to shake off a 23 goal defeat against Romania one day and then score a victory over Poland the next day. Also, from a precursory check of the IHF database it look like it is the first ever victory for a Japanese side against a European team in a major competition.

But, while these sides have made progress, there’s still a long way to go. Great Britain lost their semifinal game against Finland and 3rd place game against Bosnia, meaning that they are a middle of the pack team in Europe’s lowest tier. Japan lost their final match against Hungary by 10 goals.

As is often the case, it’s 2 steps forward 1 step back. For Great Britain the next step will be to win the Challenge Cup the next go round and to play some competitive matches against the next tier of teams in Europe. For Japan, the next step would be to advance to the Main Round at a World

British Handball Article: Championship.http://britishhandball.worldhandball.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?menuid=1093&itemid=1948