There are times when as a sports fan I want to be very, very excited about some tidbit of news that I have found, but now into the 60th year since my birth I have come to realize even the best news in sports can quickly fizzle, so a certain healthy level of wait and see is needed too.
Last year USA Team Handball CEO, Barry Siff, was interviewed on the “Off-Center Sports” Show, on KWMR radio in Point Reyes Station, California, just North of San Francisco, with chunks of the interview on www.teamhandballnews.com. That included him saying “And, then ultimately the goal in three years is to have a professional league here in the United States. And, we’re working on that today.”
That is one of those take it with a large grain of salt. I suspect most sport CEUs stateside dream of pro leagues to become their catalyst for sport growth. Certainly the US volleyball had stated similar aspirations for as early as 2020 but the prospect of that is of course remote now.
And there have been rumours aplenty regarding pro cricket, and we just saw the start of yet another spring football league, something that has tried and failed repeatedly, at least back to the mid-1970s with the World Football League.
In the case of handball I really hope it works out. The game is fun to watch, with more physicality than you might expect, and lots of offence.
Still a CEO daydreaming doesn’t make a league a reality.
Some better news however has come to light.
Verizon is one of America’s biggest marketing spenders led by CEO Hans Vestberg (former president of Swedish Olympic Committee), made the partnership with the USA Team Handball as a sponsor, reports www.handball-planet.com
“As a new sponsor of USA Team Handball, Verizon is hoping to put the sport on the map domestically. Its rights deal (a one-year agreement with options to go through 2024) will put the Verizon logo on the front of the NGB’s uniforms, and grant the communications giant a “Founding Technology and Content Provider” designation, through which it hopes to grow the sport. New sponsor dollars are always impressive; having the NGB’s first non-endemic sponsor is a revelation.”
This tidbit puts some deep pockets behind the endeavour, and money helps build foundations. Having a major player as sponsor also helps in terms of creating some expectation of legitimacy others may be attracted too.
It makes sense big companies are looking to align themselves with sports since they are one of the view vehicles for electronic media that is keeping steady eyeballs in large numbers, It’s too easy to fast-forward through ads on episodic television, but less likely to happen with live sports.
It’s of course hard to grab any sizeable chunk of the existing big leagues, a basketball franchise if available would be a billion dollar investment and that is control of one city market. Verizon, or similar companies can risk a far smaller amount and be the face of an entire league.
While many things can go astray over three years to make a pro handball league just another idea on the scrapheap to pro sports, but the game is exciting, the sponsor major, the appetite for sport contend insatiable, so just maybe ... I certainly hope it makes it, with a team in Canada of course.
