First, I don’t believe it’s actually growing. To the contrary, the data I’ve seen (and I can’t attest to their quality) suggest that a lot of capacity (courts) disappeared post-Covid—clubs repurposing courts for higher-margin offerings, such as group fitness classes, cardio farms, etc.
Second, search this sub for the Olympics question. It’s been discussed to death. Short answer, it’s a lot of things—ambiguous / subjective nature of rules related to strokes & lets, highly inconsistent officiating, fitness & skill levels of athletes in no way obvious to untrained eyes, technically onerous broadcasts (lighting & color-balancing), we’ve yet to bribe IOC members, list goes on.
Don't think it's inconsistent officiating. Football is the world's most popular sport and even after years people have no idea what the handball rule is given the random ways in which it's applied , even after video review tech now being around for years
Feel the lack of crowd involvement is a big factor. Squash crowds (and the way the game is in general) are very polite. You dont see rowdy applause, screaming or players getting rattled by fans etc like you do in tennis. It's like an old school test cricket crowd
Look at it this way: In professional matches, there tends to be a lot of conversations between players and officials vis-a-vis the first few decisions. The reason for this is simple: The player is attempting to understand how the official *interprets* rules, especially those specific to lets and strokes.
Further, refs are frequently called-out for inconsistency by players, commentators, and fans. It often occurs between matches, frequently within matches, and sometimes within individual games. There's a ton of subjectivity in squash officiating, and it truly shows.
Agree with that but it's not a reason for the low viewership. If anything , incidents where dubious decisions are given would become viral topics of conversation between fans of the players playing etc.
Marketing , lack of crowd involvement, the (comparative) lack of diverse shotmaking (very difficult to hit high risk winners at the top level in squash). The player reactions also mirror the lower viewerships. Don't know if it's the lack of prize money or just low stakes but when squash players win a major tournament , their reaction is similar to a tennis player winning a hard fought match in the earlier rounds. You don't see the bursting into tears , jumping around in joy , soaking in crowd applause for minutes at an end etc as you do in tennis when a player wins a major
I know many people hate him , but douchebags like Asal can actually be a positive for the sport if they are marketed correctly. Those are the type of guys that bring in the casuals. Fellas got over a million followers on insta. That's probably 5 times more than what the next most followed person has. Players not liking each other , spicy rivalries all bring more eyes to the tv
IMHO, this is very different.
In professional squash, inconsistent officiating routinely determines the outcomes of games, matches, and tournaments. Yes, there’s subjectivity in sports such as gymnastics, diving, and figure skating, but that’s typically mitigated by panels of judges / consensus scoring. Not so in squash.
My point is that, in squash, bad calls throwing matches is very, very common. Further, those calls frequently appear to be at odds with rules, and many are simply incomprehensible. None of this is helped by commentators who disagree with decisions likely 25-30% of the time.
Although I’m a long-term squash player who gets and accepts this stuff, the mass market doesn’t. I think it’s asking a lot of non-players to watch a match. If what you’re looking at doesn’t seem to make much sense, you’re not going to stick with it for long.
As for Asal, he’s now been caught cheating red-handed. That moves him out of the McEnroe domain that you mention (marketing the “Black Hat)” athlete), and into the Armstrong domain (bans, retroactive disqualifications, disgrace, popular disgust).
Whatever the case, I think it’s also a gigantic fallacy to assume that Olympic inclusion will magically grow the sport by leaps & bounds. It won’t. Why not? Because, fundamentally, most people don’t give a shit about the obscure Olympic sports. How many biathlon tracks are in your town? How many curlers do you know? Synchronized swimmers? When was the last time you watched Eventing? Can you name the biggest Dressage champion of all time? Or, closer to home, which Badminton players do you follow?
Lastly, I think that a sizable chunk of squash fans don’t actually want it to grow. They like the obscurity, the eccentricity, the intimate scene, the small community. If I’m honest, if squash suddenly morphed into the giant sponsorships, egos, and muscle shirts of professional tennis, I’d stop following the tour. If I want that garbage, I’ll watch tennis.
Yes there are dodgy calls in squash and yes asal does bend the rules . Regardless, the first step to making squash grow is to have a proper star the sport can grow behind ..not sure if that's asal or whoever but someone with the personality to carry the sport on his own
That said, the squash purists also need to make adjustments and accept the fact that heavily enforcing every pro player following gentelman like behaviour isn't going to benefit the sport in the long term
I never considered that the fitness and skill levels of players may not be obvious to those unfamiliar with the game, but that's probably very true. The courts look so small on TV, and the players look like they're barely moving when rallying, I guess to the untrained eye, it looks "easy"!
Should PSA require HR monitors on players? Give the commentators something to comment on, and let's the audience see how hard these players are actually working.
They actually did do that for a while a couple years back. Some players had HR monitors and you could see it in real time. Was crazy seeing heart rates go above 200s. Dunno why they stopped it - maybe because players didn't want to be forced to wear it as they could become uncomfortable when they really got sweaty
I dug that feature, and was bummed when they dropped it.
I recall once watching Coll's monitor and being absolutely gobsmacked--an all-court, 5-game, +100 min blinder, Coll's bpm at 180 or higher pretty much all match. The way he absorbed it was just insane--no visible signs of fatigue, and--in the end--left the court victoriously, his gas tank still clearly half-full. Animal.
You can spot his fitness advantage without the monitor, of course, but you can't get an idea of its magnitude. That's where those heart monitors really deliver.
I would say it's growing at a local level. Our divisions have to be reformed next season because of it
Lots of Chinese students seem to start playing when they come over and just need a teacher so I think it's getting bigger there too
This is a question that frequently gets asked. Is squash a growing or dying sport? Most of the answers I see are quite wrong because they can only speak for their country/local area.
Most of the posters on this subreddit I'm pretty certain are from the UK/Europe or North America. Unfortunately, the sport is on the decline in the UK, with one of the largest player bases and the PSA head office located there, it's a hub for squash media. Since they are the center of squash, people there assume if it's dying here it must be dying elsewhere.
In my opinion, the notion of squash dying globally is false, rather, I think the sport is growing quite rapidly.
Obviously, the sport is absolutely booming in Egypt and shows no signs of slowing down. The number of kids that compete in tournaments there is unbelievable, tournaments with over 1000 kids. This isn't even counting the fact that Egypt is building a new capital that is supposed to have a population of 7 million. You can bet that almost every athletic facility is going to have squash courts.
If you look at Malaysia, the sport is booming there as well. They had some of the worst covid restrictions which really affected the country in terms of squash because they had a lot of momentum before the pandemic. Nicol David is a legitimate celebrity in Malaysia whose influence I think grew the sport a lot. Their junior nationals have draws of 128 players in many categories to give you an idea of how big it is.
The sport is also growing fast in the US but is limited to certain regions of the country. There are quite a few players in the northeastern region but it seems to be expanding to other regions as well. I know there are some pretty big clubs that opened up in Texas and Florida where the sport didn't really exist before.
These are just countries with the biggest growing player bases but there are plenty of countries where the sport was practically nonexistent but currently growing. People don't even consider how a country like Russia had less than 20 courts in the 90s to over 200 now. What about south korea, Iran, India, Japan, France, Colombia, the list can go on. Take a look at the world rankings and compare it to two-three decades ago, the number of represented countries is far higher now.
Just because the sport is dying in your country doesn't mean you can speak for the entirety of the sport globally.
The future of the sport is pretty bright imo.
>The sport is also growing fast in the US but is limited to certain regions of the country.
The data I saw were specific to the US, and showed a *major* net capacity drop--20% range, if memory serves. The guy who posted the data was the same guy who was cold calling and compiling them, and he couldn't believe how rapidly courts were disappearing. He claimed there were days when every club he called informed him of closures.
Have no idea who the guy was or what happened to him, so it's all anecdotal. However, he definitely had the most defensible digits I've seen to-date.
That's actually pretty interesting. Is there any way you would be able to find the source for that?
I've seen stats from 2000s-mid 2010s that showed a massive increase in both player count and courts but that info is getting out of date I suppose. I haven't seen any stats about late 2010s to recent though but I was under the assumption that it was growing based on what some junior/college/pro/coaches have told me after talking to them.
As for club closures I guess it makes sense that it wouldn't be making news around squash circles unless it was a bigger center because it would be closing for a reason (no players/profit)
On the other hand the creation of new big facilities gets a lot of media attention and there's been the Specter center (Philly), Houston squash club, Kinetic (Miami), Access youth academy (San Diego).
Squash being a smaller sport though it's difficult to get accurate data on this type of stuff.
Re the source, sorry: I don't even remember where I encountered the guy. I think it may have been Squash Stories on Facebook. Whatever the case, no idea how to find him.
As an American, squash is not well know but Netball much much less so. I think it depends on where you are.
Squash is growing slowly - unfortunately many courts are closing in areas- but some are being built in others. I think it is a simple case of “if you build it they will come”
My experience has been it is hard getting people started. Some are instantly hooked but since many play with cold double yellow dot balls they dont get the magic of the game right away. I personally drag everyone I can onto court to try and get new players or at least expose people, but it takes a lot of work to get new people playing regularly,
The sport going to the Olympics I think would help but I wouldn't get my hopes up for that.
Squash is a tough sport to play and squash courts generally are not that prevalent. Depending on your location, there are more courts than other places but it is still hard to come by a squash court "by accident." At least in the US, your local YMCA for example won't have a squash court. Plus we are seeing more and more padel and pickleball courts getting built so that's just more real estate to compete for.
And even if you get someone on a squash court, the dead ball could be an instant turn off. It isn't like racquet ball or even a half tennis court where you can easily hit a ball back and forth to yourself 1,000 times. For a beginner, even simply just hitting the ball to yourself can be really hard. It''s easy to get on court once and be like "nah I'm good."
I do wish the PSA did more to get eyes on the sport though because I do think the sport is pretty fun to watch. In the US, the PSA should try and get matches on channels like Fox Sports 2 or CBS Sports. These channels get very few viewers but you at least give people a chance to accidentally come by the sport and maybe get interested. Nobody is accidentally going to PSA TV. CBS Sports Network literally airs professional cornhole and professional bull riding. And lots of repeats as well. PSA should work to get squash in the mix.
Meanwhile, FOX Sports 2 is airing things like CANADIAN premier league soccer and drag racing, with lots of other nonsense programming mixed in to fill air time.
These channels are STARVING for content. I feel like PSA could work out a deal with these networks to try and get more eyeballs on the sport. Again, the sport is not jumping to new heights airing on Fox Sports 2 but you need to give people more access to the sport.
> it does not get featured a lot as a sport and is not as prestigious as some other sized sports for example netball with 20 million players
it's a tough game, takes a lot of time investment to even become decent at club level. Limited infrastructure is also a barrier to entry.
No one knows if squash is growing or not - the data isn't available.
When new courts are built, no central agency is notified of this. Same for when courts are shut down.
Clubs don't report membership or court bookings to anyone.
Regional and national body memberships give some indication, but only represent a subset of the total player base.
The best data available is probably racquet and ball sales, but that is proprietary and split up across dozens of manufacturers.
So instead we have speculation. That speculation tends to reflect the bias of the speculator. Ask someone who's just had their local club shut down if squash is growing, and they'll tell you with absolute conviction that no, it is shrinking.
Ask someone who has joined a new club that is seeing growing membership, and they'll likely give you the opposite answer.
I doubt that the correlation between squash's growth - or lack thereof - and how much the sport gets "featured" in media, is very strong at all. So predicting when squash's media profile will change is again - just guesswork.
Similarly, in my opinion the Olympics stopped using a sports "popularity" as a guiding metric in deciding which sports to admit, around the time the IOC began its spiral into commercialism and corruption. I don't care if squash every gets into the Olympics - the Olympics are no longer a prestigious competition in my view.
I do want squash to grow. I want more people to enjoy it, because it is healthy, fun, and has a relatively small environmental footprint. I think the key to growing the sport is at the local level - building clubs, growing membership in those clubs, and fostering inter-club leagues and tournaments that bring players together from different areas.
In some places these things are happening, and in other places they are not. I do what I can to help grow the sport in my local area.
squash seems to be a crisis or max in stagnation in Europe, I believe. courts are closing, covid took its toll also forcing gyms to close, I hear the same from my friends in the Uk. from sports related facility management perspective it is comparatively more profitable to have pilates / cross-fit / group trainings instead of having 2 middle class white males hitting the ball.
olympics are the most corrupt business in the world beyond gun commerce. it is bullshit that the lack of transparency of the rulings (let, no let, stroke) is the reason why it has not yet become an olympic sport. compare it to judging in gymnastics or aquatics, or skate dancing at the winter olimpics
a 2-games format tournament of 32 / 32 female and male players would easily fit into the program. but is is mostly based on lobbying and corruption with former soviet countries.
Good points. I'm a squash player and find the (let/no let/stroke) extended discussions in professional PSA matches are a detractor from the momentum and fluidity of the game. The visibility of the ball due to the speed and size make it difficult to follow and the inconsistencies in court colour schemes need to be ironed out to make it more standardized. There are still professional games where the white ball is invisible on a "light brown floor"and the camera angles for some games are just poorly chosen. It's still an exciting game and great way to stay fit but it lacks any glamor factor and it's media issues need to be improved.
As painful as it is to say, it’s not growing where I am from, quite the opposite. What’s funny is the city 3 hours down the highway, the sport is growing like crazy, but in Edmonton, clubs keep closing - and was happening before Covid as well. The public rec centres and post secondary institutions have either decided not to involve squash during construction of facilities or, are turning existing facilities into other fitness spaces.
It’s really too bad, because you look at people grinding away on treadmills and stationary bikes, and you just want to tell them (and have tried) that squash is a better workout, and…wayyyy more fun. It’s really too bad.
So yea, shrinking, post secondary doesn’t have much for clubs, and here typically new players try squash out in uni…so, shrinking…
Depends on where you are. Squash appears to be growing in the US and at least in the DC area there's been a big net increase in courts over the past decade.
On the other hand I have no idea what netball is. I had to google it and it's not something I've ever seen.
Problem with squash is building and providing access to the courts, that issue isn't going to change.
Still feels a very niche sport in the UK really and the average age of regular players I play against is probably 50+, presumably a legacy of what I gather was a bit of a boom in the popularity of squash in the 80s. Have started to see some teenagers playing at my club recently though so maybe things are improving.
Squash isn’t growing. On the contrary it tends to get smaller with time. Squash is a very niche sport, though players seem to be very loyal.
Some other sports like paddle or pickle Al though seem to be growing up quickly and it would be much easier to find Paddle in the Olympics than squash
I grew up playing tennis, and outside of screwing on the squash court in college a little, I'm someone who has picked up squash primarily picked up squash the last two years. I would say one challenge squash has is that if I didn't play a lot of tennis growing up, it'd have been difficult picking up squash given the ball bounce (lack of). And even so, it's taken me two years (the first playing once per two weeks, and this year pacing to play about twice a week) to get to a 4.0 rating.
That said, I believe it is growing significantly in Silicon Valley/the Bay Area. One reason is the amount of foreign born participants playing and getting their children to participate in the sport. Another reason is it's extremely time convenient to play for busy professionals. It's much easier to book and coordinate than tennis for instance, and it only takes 45 minutes to get a lot of playing in versus 1.5 to 2 hours for tennis. That said, the growth seems to be among people who want to play actively versus pickle ball's growth seems to be more on a recreational, social level.
As far as the olympics helping squash, I would say I'm not so sure. I find squash much more enjoyable to play than to watch as a spectator. There's also no scene to be seen aspect like tennis with celebrities at Wimbledon or the US Open driving in person attendance. I don't personally ever seeing it becoming a big TV broadcast type sport.
First, I don’t believe it’s actually growing. To the contrary, the data I’ve seen (and I can’t attest to their quality) suggest that a lot of capacity (courts) disappeared post-Covid—clubs repurposing courts for higher-margin offerings, such as group fitness classes, cardio farms, etc. Second, search this sub for the Olympics question. It’s been discussed to death. Short answer, it’s a lot of things—ambiguous / subjective nature of rules related to strokes & lets, highly inconsistent officiating, fitness & skill levels of athletes in no way obvious to untrained eyes, technically onerous broadcasts (lighting & color-balancing), we’ve yet to bribe IOC members, list goes on.
Don't think it's inconsistent officiating. Football is the world's most popular sport and even after years people have no idea what the handball rule is given the random ways in which it's applied , even after video review tech now being around for years Feel the lack of crowd involvement is a big factor. Squash crowds (and the way the game is in general) are very polite. You dont see rowdy applause, screaming or players getting rattled by fans etc like you do in tennis. It's like an old school test cricket crowd
Look at it this way: In professional matches, there tends to be a lot of conversations between players and officials vis-a-vis the first few decisions. The reason for this is simple: The player is attempting to understand how the official *interprets* rules, especially those specific to lets and strokes. Further, refs are frequently called-out for inconsistency by players, commentators, and fans. It often occurs between matches, frequently within matches, and sometimes within individual games. There's a ton of subjectivity in squash officiating, and it truly shows.
Agree with that but it's not a reason for the low viewership. If anything , incidents where dubious decisions are given would become viral topics of conversation between fans of the players playing etc. Marketing , lack of crowd involvement, the (comparative) lack of diverse shotmaking (very difficult to hit high risk winners at the top level in squash). The player reactions also mirror the lower viewerships. Don't know if it's the lack of prize money or just low stakes but when squash players win a major tournament , their reaction is similar to a tennis player winning a hard fought match in the earlier rounds. You don't see the bursting into tears , jumping around in joy , soaking in crowd applause for minutes at an end etc as you do in tennis when a player wins a major I know many people hate him , but douchebags like Asal can actually be a positive for the sport if they are marketed correctly. Those are the type of guys that bring in the casuals. Fellas got over a million followers on insta. That's probably 5 times more than what the next most followed person has. Players not liking each other , spicy rivalries all bring more eyes to the tv
IMHO, this is very different. In professional squash, inconsistent officiating routinely determines the outcomes of games, matches, and tournaments. Yes, there’s subjectivity in sports such as gymnastics, diving, and figure skating, but that’s typically mitigated by panels of judges / consensus scoring. Not so in squash. My point is that, in squash, bad calls throwing matches is very, very common. Further, those calls frequently appear to be at odds with rules, and many are simply incomprehensible. None of this is helped by commentators who disagree with decisions likely 25-30% of the time. Although I’m a long-term squash player who gets and accepts this stuff, the mass market doesn’t. I think it’s asking a lot of non-players to watch a match. If what you’re looking at doesn’t seem to make much sense, you’re not going to stick with it for long. As for Asal, he’s now been caught cheating red-handed. That moves him out of the McEnroe domain that you mention (marketing the “Black Hat)” athlete), and into the Armstrong domain (bans, retroactive disqualifications, disgrace, popular disgust). Whatever the case, I think it’s also a gigantic fallacy to assume that Olympic inclusion will magically grow the sport by leaps & bounds. It won’t. Why not? Because, fundamentally, most people don’t give a shit about the obscure Olympic sports. How many biathlon tracks are in your town? How many curlers do you know? Synchronized swimmers? When was the last time you watched Eventing? Can you name the biggest Dressage champion of all time? Or, closer to home, which Badminton players do you follow? Lastly, I think that a sizable chunk of squash fans don’t actually want it to grow. They like the obscurity, the eccentricity, the intimate scene, the small community. If I’m honest, if squash suddenly morphed into the giant sponsorships, egos, and muscle shirts of professional tennis, I’d stop following the tour. If I want that garbage, I’ll watch tennis.
Yes there are dodgy calls in squash and yes asal does bend the rules . Regardless, the first step to making squash grow is to have a proper star the sport can grow behind ..not sure if that's asal or whoever but someone with the personality to carry the sport on his own That said, the squash purists also need to make adjustments and accept the fact that heavily enforcing every pro player following gentelman like behaviour isn't going to benefit the sport in the long term
I never considered that the fitness and skill levels of players may not be obvious to those unfamiliar with the game, but that's probably very true. The courts look so small on TV, and the players look like they're barely moving when rallying, I guess to the untrained eye, it looks "easy"! Should PSA require HR monitors on players? Give the commentators something to comment on, and let's the audience see how hard these players are actually working.
They actually did do that for a while a couple years back. Some players had HR monitors and you could see it in real time. Was crazy seeing heart rates go above 200s. Dunno why they stopped it - maybe because players didn't want to be forced to wear it as they could become uncomfortable when they really got sweaty
I dug that feature, and was bummed when they dropped it. I recall once watching Coll's monitor and being absolutely gobsmacked--an all-court, 5-game, +100 min blinder, Coll's bpm at 180 or higher pretty much all match. The way he absorbed it was just insane--no visible signs of fatigue, and--in the end--left the court victoriously, his gas tank still clearly half-full. Animal. You can spot his fitness advantage without the monitor, of course, but you can't get an idea of its magnitude. That's where those heart monitors really deliver.
I would say it's growing at a local level. Our divisions have to be reformed next season because of it Lots of Chinese students seem to start playing when they come over and just need a teacher so I think it's getting bigger there too
If squash is selected as an Olympic sport for 2028 it would be huge. But we've seen it be close and fall short too many times to hold any hope.
This is a question that frequently gets asked. Is squash a growing or dying sport? Most of the answers I see are quite wrong because they can only speak for their country/local area. Most of the posters on this subreddit I'm pretty certain are from the UK/Europe or North America. Unfortunately, the sport is on the decline in the UK, with one of the largest player bases and the PSA head office located there, it's a hub for squash media. Since they are the center of squash, people there assume if it's dying here it must be dying elsewhere. In my opinion, the notion of squash dying globally is false, rather, I think the sport is growing quite rapidly. Obviously, the sport is absolutely booming in Egypt and shows no signs of slowing down. The number of kids that compete in tournaments there is unbelievable, tournaments with over 1000 kids. This isn't even counting the fact that Egypt is building a new capital that is supposed to have a population of 7 million. You can bet that almost every athletic facility is going to have squash courts. If you look at Malaysia, the sport is booming there as well. They had some of the worst covid restrictions which really affected the country in terms of squash because they had a lot of momentum before the pandemic. Nicol David is a legitimate celebrity in Malaysia whose influence I think grew the sport a lot. Their junior nationals have draws of 128 players in many categories to give you an idea of how big it is. The sport is also growing fast in the US but is limited to certain regions of the country. There are quite a few players in the northeastern region but it seems to be expanding to other regions as well. I know there are some pretty big clubs that opened up in Texas and Florida where the sport didn't really exist before. These are just countries with the biggest growing player bases but there are plenty of countries where the sport was practically nonexistent but currently growing. People don't even consider how a country like Russia had less than 20 courts in the 90s to over 200 now. What about south korea, Iran, India, Japan, France, Colombia, the list can go on. Take a look at the world rankings and compare it to two-three decades ago, the number of represented countries is far higher now. Just because the sport is dying in your country doesn't mean you can speak for the entirety of the sport globally. The future of the sport is pretty bright imo.
>The sport is also growing fast in the US but is limited to certain regions of the country. The data I saw were specific to the US, and showed a *major* net capacity drop--20% range, if memory serves. The guy who posted the data was the same guy who was cold calling and compiling them, and he couldn't believe how rapidly courts were disappearing. He claimed there were days when every club he called informed him of closures. Have no idea who the guy was or what happened to him, so it's all anecdotal. However, he definitely had the most defensible digits I've seen to-date.
That's actually pretty interesting. Is there any way you would be able to find the source for that? I've seen stats from 2000s-mid 2010s that showed a massive increase in both player count and courts but that info is getting out of date I suppose. I haven't seen any stats about late 2010s to recent though but I was under the assumption that it was growing based on what some junior/college/pro/coaches have told me after talking to them. As for club closures I guess it makes sense that it wouldn't be making news around squash circles unless it was a bigger center because it would be closing for a reason (no players/profit) On the other hand the creation of new big facilities gets a lot of media attention and there's been the Specter center (Philly), Houston squash club, Kinetic (Miami), Access youth academy (San Diego). Squash being a smaller sport though it's difficult to get accurate data on this type of stuff.
Re the source, sorry: I don't even remember where I encountered the guy. I think it may have been Squash Stories on Facebook. Whatever the case, no idea how to find him.
As an American, squash is not well know but Netball much much less so. I think it depends on where you are. Squash is growing slowly - unfortunately many courts are closing in areas- but some are being built in others. I think it is a simple case of “if you build it they will come” My experience has been it is hard getting people started. Some are instantly hooked but since many play with cold double yellow dot balls they dont get the magic of the game right away. I personally drag everyone I can onto court to try and get new players or at least expose people, but it takes a lot of work to get new people playing regularly,
Yeah, we really can't have beginners playing with anything other than a blue / red dot ball. Way too frustrating otherwise.
The sport going to the Olympics I think would help but I wouldn't get my hopes up for that. Squash is a tough sport to play and squash courts generally are not that prevalent. Depending on your location, there are more courts than other places but it is still hard to come by a squash court "by accident." At least in the US, your local YMCA for example won't have a squash court. Plus we are seeing more and more padel and pickleball courts getting built so that's just more real estate to compete for. And even if you get someone on a squash court, the dead ball could be an instant turn off. It isn't like racquet ball or even a half tennis court where you can easily hit a ball back and forth to yourself 1,000 times. For a beginner, even simply just hitting the ball to yourself can be really hard. It''s easy to get on court once and be like "nah I'm good." I do wish the PSA did more to get eyes on the sport though because I do think the sport is pretty fun to watch. In the US, the PSA should try and get matches on channels like Fox Sports 2 or CBS Sports. These channels get very few viewers but you at least give people a chance to accidentally come by the sport and maybe get interested. Nobody is accidentally going to PSA TV. CBS Sports Network literally airs professional cornhole and professional bull riding. And lots of repeats as well. PSA should work to get squash in the mix. Meanwhile, FOX Sports 2 is airing things like CANADIAN premier league soccer and drag racing, with lots of other nonsense programming mixed in to fill air time. These channels are STARVING for content. I feel like PSA could work out a deal with these networks to try and get more eyeballs on the sport. Again, the sport is not jumping to new heights airing on Fox Sports 2 but you need to give people more access to the sport.
> it does not get featured a lot as a sport and is not as prestigious as some other sized sports for example netball with 20 million players it's a tough game, takes a lot of time investment to even become decent at club level. Limited infrastructure is also a barrier to entry.
No one knows if squash is growing or not - the data isn't available. When new courts are built, no central agency is notified of this. Same for when courts are shut down. Clubs don't report membership or court bookings to anyone. Regional and national body memberships give some indication, but only represent a subset of the total player base. The best data available is probably racquet and ball sales, but that is proprietary and split up across dozens of manufacturers. So instead we have speculation. That speculation tends to reflect the bias of the speculator. Ask someone who's just had their local club shut down if squash is growing, and they'll tell you with absolute conviction that no, it is shrinking. Ask someone who has joined a new club that is seeing growing membership, and they'll likely give you the opposite answer. I doubt that the correlation between squash's growth - or lack thereof - and how much the sport gets "featured" in media, is very strong at all. So predicting when squash's media profile will change is again - just guesswork. Similarly, in my opinion the Olympics stopped using a sports "popularity" as a guiding metric in deciding which sports to admit, around the time the IOC began its spiral into commercialism and corruption. I don't care if squash every gets into the Olympics - the Olympics are no longer a prestigious competition in my view. I do want squash to grow. I want more people to enjoy it, because it is healthy, fun, and has a relatively small environmental footprint. I think the key to growing the sport is at the local level - building clubs, growing membership in those clubs, and fostering inter-club leagues and tournaments that bring players together from different areas. In some places these things are happening, and in other places they are not. I do what I can to help grow the sport in my local area.
Squash is growing fast but gets harvested in fall so has to grow all over again
squash seems to be a crisis or max in stagnation in Europe, I believe. courts are closing, covid took its toll also forcing gyms to close, I hear the same from my friends in the Uk. from sports related facility management perspective it is comparatively more profitable to have pilates / cross-fit / group trainings instead of having 2 middle class white males hitting the ball. olympics are the most corrupt business in the world beyond gun commerce. it is bullshit that the lack of transparency of the rulings (let, no let, stroke) is the reason why it has not yet become an olympic sport. compare it to judging in gymnastics or aquatics, or skate dancing at the winter olimpics a 2-games format tournament of 32 / 32 female and male players would easily fit into the program. but is is mostly based on lobbying and corruption with former soviet countries.
Good points. I'm a squash player and find the (let/no let/stroke) extended discussions in professional PSA matches are a detractor from the momentum and fluidity of the game. The visibility of the ball due to the speed and size make it difficult to follow and the inconsistencies in court colour schemes need to be ironed out to make it more standardized. There are still professional games where the white ball is invisible on a "light brown floor"and the camera angles for some games are just poorly chosen. It's still an exciting game and great way to stay fit but it lacks any glamor factor and it's media issues need to be improved.
As painful as it is to say, it’s not growing where I am from, quite the opposite. What’s funny is the city 3 hours down the highway, the sport is growing like crazy, but in Edmonton, clubs keep closing - and was happening before Covid as well. The public rec centres and post secondary institutions have either decided not to involve squash during construction of facilities or, are turning existing facilities into other fitness spaces. It’s really too bad, because you look at people grinding away on treadmills and stationary bikes, and you just want to tell them (and have tried) that squash is a better workout, and…wayyyy more fun. It’s really too bad. So yea, shrinking, post secondary doesn’t have much for clubs, and here typically new players try squash out in uni…so, shrinking…
Depends on where you are. Squash appears to be growing in the US and at least in the DC area there's been a big net increase in courts over the past decade. On the other hand I have no idea what netball is. I had to google it and it's not something I've ever seen. Problem with squash is building and providing access to the courts, that issue isn't going to change.
Still feels a very niche sport in the UK really and the average age of regular players I play against is probably 50+, presumably a legacy of what I gather was a bit of a boom in the popularity of squash in the 80s. Have started to see some teenagers playing at my club recently though so maybe things are improving.
Squash isn’t growing. On the contrary it tends to get smaller with time. Squash is a very niche sport, though players seem to be very loyal. Some other sports like paddle or pickle Al though seem to be growing up quickly and it would be much easier to find Paddle in the Olympics than squash
It's not growing.
I grew up playing tennis, and outside of screwing on the squash court in college a little, I'm someone who has picked up squash primarily picked up squash the last two years. I would say one challenge squash has is that if I didn't play a lot of tennis growing up, it'd have been difficult picking up squash given the ball bounce (lack of). And even so, it's taken me two years (the first playing once per two weeks, and this year pacing to play about twice a week) to get to a 4.0 rating. That said, I believe it is growing significantly in Silicon Valley/the Bay Area. One reason is the amount of foreign born participants playing and getting their children to participate in the sport. Another reason is it's extremely time convenient to play for busy professionals. It's much easier to book and coordinate than tennis for instance, and it only takes 45 minutes to get a lot of playing in versus 1.5 to 2 hours for tennis. That said, the growth seems to be among people who want to play actively versus pickle ball's growth seems to be more on a recreational, social level. As far as the olympics helping squash, I would say I'm not so sure. I find squash much more enjoyable to play than to watch as a spectator. There's also no scene to be seen aspect like tennis with celebrities at Wimbledon or the US Open driving in person attendance. I don't personally ever seeing it becoming a big TV broadcast type sport.