What impact has the name confusion for Handball/Team Handball had on the sports development in the US?
A huge, negative impact. Development of any new sport can be challenging, but the additional semantic challenge Team Handball has due to simply having the same name as an unrelated sport has added another layer of difficulty. While a semantic issue might not seem significant at first, the fact that virtually everyone in the US who is introduced to the sport, must first be explained what the sport is and that it is not the Handball they think it is a difficult hurdle to cross. In the USA, the sport is often described as “soccer with your hands” or “water polo without water” or “lacrosse without sticks” to help newcomers visualize the sport. Still even with these descriptions many still can not conceptualize the sport because the vision of a little ball being slapped off a wall is too engrained into their brain.
